Nvidia is pushing back hard against claims that Chinese startup DeepSeek managed to get its hands on banned technology. On Wednesday, the chip giant refuted a report stating that DeepSeek used smuggled Blackwell chips to train its latest artificial intelligence model.
The report, originally published by The Information, alleged that the startup bypassed strict U.S. export controls to acquire the hardware. The United States currently bans the export of Blackwell chips—Nvidia’s most powerful processors—to China. This policy aims to prevent Beijing from catching up to the U.S. in the race for AI dominance.
Nvidia says the logistics of such a smuggling operation make the story unbelievable. A spokesperson for the company said they have found no evidence of “phantom datacenters” being built to fool regulators, only to be dismantled and secretly shipped across borders.
“While such smuggling seems far-fetched, we pursue any tip we receive,” the spokesperson stated, noting that they closely track their supply chain to meet U.S. partners’ requirements.
The controversy highlights just how political Nvidia’s business has become. Because their graphics processing units (GPUs) are essential for training smart software, Washington watches every move the company makes. On Monday, President Donald Trump entered the fray, suggesting that Nvidia could ship its H200 chips to “approved customers” in China, but only if the U.S. government takes a 25% cut of the sales. Several Republicans immediately criticized the President’s proposal.
DeepSeek is already a sore spot for the American tech industry. In January, the startup rattled Silicon Valley by releasing R1, a reasoning model that shot to the top of the charts. Analysts estimated that DeepSeek built R1 for a fraction of what U.S. companies spend to build similar tools.
While the rumors focus on smuggled American hardware, DeepSeek has hinted that they might not need Nvidia for long. In August, the company claimed that China would soon have its own “next generation” chips ready to power the country’s future AI projects.
