DeepSeek Trained Its Latest Model on Banned Nvidia Blackwell Chips
Reuters reports that DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup that shocked the industry last year, trained its latest model on Nvidia Blackwell chips. A senior Trump administration official confirmed the news, calling it a likely violation of U.S. export controls.
What We Know
The new DeepSeek model is set to release as soon as next week. The U.S. believes the Blackwell chips are clustered at a data center in Inner Mongolia. The official said DeepSeek will likely strip technical indicators that reveal it used American chips. Nvidia declined to comment. DeepSeek and the Commerce Department did not respond.
The Policy Divide
The revelation deepens a split in Washington. White House AI Czar David Sacks and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argue that shipping advanced chips to China discourages domestic competitors like Huawei from catching up. China hawks counter that chips could be diverted to military applications.
Trump had opened the door to selling scaled-down Blackwell chips to China in August, then reversed course. His December decision to allow H200 sales drew criticism, and those shipments remain stalled.
Why It Matters
If confirmed, this shows that U.S. export controls are not stopping China from accessing top-tier AI hardware. The question for policymakers: if bans are being circumvented anyway, does the current approach even work?
