Reuters: Deepseek had the opportunity to train its artificial intelligence models on American NVIDIA chips

DeepSeek in China is accused of using NVIDIA chips despite the ban

Chinese company DeepSeek may have used American NVIDIA Blackwell chips to train its new artificial intelligence model, despite a ban on exporting these technologies to China.

According to Reuters, citing a source in the US government, this involves a new AI model expected to be released in early March 2026. The obtained data suggests that flagship Blackwell chips might have been used in DeepSeek’s data center in Inner Mongolia, although their export to China is regulated by US Department of Commerce restrictions.

A government representative highlighted the possibility of removing technical markers that could detect the presence of American chips. NVIDIA declined to comment, as did the US Department of Commerce and DeepSeek, which did not respond to journalists’ inquiries. The Chinese Embassy in Washington opposed the “politicization of technological and trade issues” and cautioned against the excessive expansion of the national security concept.

Discussions regarding the supply of advanced AI chips to China are actively ongoing in the US. Some industry representatives, including NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, believe that a complete restriction may further accelerate the development of Chinese alternatives from companies such as Huawei. The Trump administration previously considered allowing the export of a simplified version of Blackwell but changed its decision.

Additionally, DeepSeek might have used the “distillation” method by training the new model using responses from more powerful systems, such as products from OpenAI, Google, and others. Official US confirmation of the use of banned chips might spark a new wave of discussions regarding the extent of export restrictions to China.