Overview
- Reports on Friday show some Micro Center stores, including locations in Tustin and Columbus, began asking customers buying PowerSpec Ai90 PCs with RTX 5090 cards to sign an "Advanced Computing Product Purchaser Declaration" and to have a government ID scanned.
- The single‑page form asks buyers to certify the product will remain in the United States and not be exported, resold, reexported, transferred, or supplied elsewhere and is labeled "NO EXPORT - NO EXCEPTIONS."
- The declaration collects name, address, contact details, intended end user and installation address, a process that could let a retailer link a specific GPU serial number back to an identified buyer if the card is later found outside the U.S.
- Industry analysts and reporters say the paperwork follows U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security anti‑diversion guidance but is not a federal mandate, and it is unlikely to stop determined diversion tactics such as dismantling cards or selling components through opaque channels.
- The move adds buyer friction and privacy concerns for consumers, may include informal one‑per‑customer limits reported by shoppers, and builds on export controls on advanced computing hardware that the U.S. began imposing in 2022.