Skip to main content
Scrutica
Sources checked 11 Sep 2026

Compute verification

How inspectors could check limits on AI training, from a cluster’s power connections to records of its jobs.

Sampling a cluster’s chips

Inspectors compare the chips at a facility with its register entry. A chip that is missing, or carries a different identity, is a discrepancy. The host may keep some areas off limits, so the question is how many chips an inspection has to check to be likely to find a discrepancy if there is one, given what is exempt.

Listed chips

91.7% chance of sampling a discrepancy, assuming as many discrepancies as possible are among the exempt chips.

Reach 90%: inspect 1,023 chips

Above 11 exempt chips, this quota misses the target

  • Selected for inspection 1,100
  • Exempt from access 10

One tile per chip. Filled tiles were selected; hatched tiles are exempt from access. The calculation assumes a random sample of individual accessible chips. The draw is illustrative (seed 1).

Calling the inspection

MIRI draft, Article X.3

A challenge inspection requires approval by consensus of the Executive Council (X.3(b)); the host must grant access within 24 hours of the Executive Council calling for a challenge inspection, during which the site may be surveilled (X.3(c)); the team is approved by both the inspected and the requesting Party (X.3(d)); at most 20 challenge inspections a year in any one Party’s territory, a limit the Council can change only by consensus (X.3(e)). The Council initially consists of the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China (III.3(a)) and every proactive Council decision requires consensus (III.3(c)), so the inspected principal can decline an inspection of itself.

Chemical Weapons Convention, Article IX

A request starts preparations, and the Council’s deliberations shall not delay the inspection process (IX.16). The Council may stop it only not later than 12 hours after having received the inspection request, by a three-quarter majority of all its members, and only if it considers the inspection request to be frivolous, abusive or clearly beyond the scope of this Convention; neither the requesting nor the inspected State Party shall participate in such a decision (IX.17). The final report goes to the requesting State Party, the inspected State Party, the Executive Council and all other States Parties, and must contain an assessment by the inspection team of the degree and nature of access and cooperation granted (IX.21).

The draft’s notes say its challenge inspections are modeled after that of Part IX of the CWC; the Convention’s Verification Annex, Part X, calls negotiated limits on what inspectors may see managed access.