China trains DeepSeek on Nvidia’s most advanced AI chip Blackwell despite US export ban

A senior Trump administration official reported on Monday that Chinese AI company DeepSeek used Nvidia’s newest and most powerful chip, Blackwell, to train its upcoming AI model.

The revelation is a big deal because the US imposed export controls, aiming to stop these cutting-edge chips from being sent to China to curtail Beijing’s dominance in the artificial intelligence landscape.

DeepSeek is expected to release this new AI model as early as next week.

As reported by Reuters, DeepSeek will try to eliminate technical data that proves the use of American AI chips in training.

The Chinese embassy in Washington responded to the information, stating “Beijing opposes drawing ideological lines, overstretching the concept of national security, expansive use of export controls and politicizing economic, trade, and technological issues.”

However, the source who is privy to the matter did not reveal how the administration obtained the information regarding alleged violations.

The recent news could further create difficulties in decision-making as US policymakers are struggling to decide how strict they should be in terms of restricting China’s access.

Some policymakers fear that the evasion of AI chip restrictions could strengthen China’s tech dominance and its military capabilities.

According to Chris McGuire, who served as a White House National Security Council official under former President Joe Biden, “This shows why exporting any AI chips to China is so dangerous.”

“Given China's leading AI companies are brazenly violating U.S. export controls, we obviously cannot expect that they will comply with U.S. conditions that would prohibit them from using chips to support the Chinese military,” he added.

Nvidia declined to comment and DeepSeek has not responded yet.

Under the Joe Biden administration, the US government restricted China’s access to Blackwell chips.

But in November, the Trump administration gave the greenlight to export a scaled-down version of Blackwell to China. Later, he reversed his decision, citing the most advanced chips should only be used by US companies.