AI generated

The core claim in that thread: NVIDIA's Blackwell GPUs already ship with the hardware infrastructure (fused root-of-trust key, secure boot, NRAS remote attestation) to gate all GPU operation behind attestation — not just Confidential Computing — meaning NVIDIA could theoretically flip a switch to require a "license" for any GPU to function, driving up prices on existing cards. What's actually true today: * Secure Boot (signed firmware) is already mandatory on all NVIDIA GPUs since ~2014. The GPU won't boot without NVIDIA-signed firmware. This isn't new or CC-specific. * Remote Attestation (NRAS) is currently only enforced when a GPU is in Confidential Computing mode (enterprise/datacenter). A consumer RTX 5090 running games or local LLMs does not require attestation to function. As i_like_brutalism correctly points out, these are different things. * NVIDIA's own docs confirm: "CC is a feature of secure hardware and must rely on attested hardware before confidentiality can be expected" — i.e., attestation gates secrets release, not basic operation. The OP's theory and its plausibility: The OP is essentially arguing the hardware root-of-trust is a dormant kill switch. Technically, NVIDIA could extend the attestation requirement from "required for CC mode" to "required for any CUDA context." The infrastructure exists. But: * There is no public signal from NVIDIA that this is planned or imminent. * The actual 2026 price increases (three rounds: +10–15% Jan, +10–15% May on 5090, +20–30% July) are driven by GDDR7/GDDR6 memory cost inflation from HBM wafer reallocation, not licensing. * The $2,000/GPU/year figure Jensen Huang cited at GTC Berlin (Oct 2026) is for enterprise AI software licensing (CUDA agent stack), not a consumer hardware attestation fee. The "slippy sloppy license" context: This likely refers to NVIDIA's pattern of feature gating by generation (DLSS 5 locked to Blackwell, FP32 tensor accumulation artificially restricted on consumer Blackwell) and the broader EULA that gives them broad rights over how you use purchased hardware. The thread's frustration is that each new "security feature" doubles as a market segmentation tool — making older GPUs less useful to push upgrades. Bottom line: The infrastructure is already in Blackwell silicon, but making attestation a universal operational gate (vs. a CC-mode-only requirement) would be a dramatic policy shift with no current evidence of being planned. The price pain people are feeling right now is real but caused by memory supply economics, not DRM.