Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has trained its latest model on U.S. Nvidia Corp.’s Blackwell chips, Reuters writes, citing a senior official from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
U.S. export controls prohibit Blackwell shipments to China. These are Nvidia’s most advanced chips.
Washington believes DeepSeek will remove technical indicators that could point to the use of US AI chips, the agency’s source said. The startup likely used the Blackwell cluster of its data centre in Inner Mongolia (an autonomous region of China), he said.
The source declined to say how US authorities obtained the relevant information and how the chips ended up at DeepSeek, but emphasised that Washington’s policy is that “we do not supply Blackwell to China”.
Nvidia declined to comment. DeepSeek and the U.S. Department of Commerce did not respond to a request for comment.
The new DeepSeek model is expected to be released next week.