Trump administration says China’s DeepSeek trains new AI model on Nvidia Blackwell chips

DeepSeek’s deployment of Nvidia’s Blackwell‑generation GPUs marks the first known commercial use of the U.S.‑restricted silicon since the chips were placed under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) in early 2024. According to a report from scanx.trade, the Trump administration’s Office of Export Enforcement identified the Chinese firm’s “latest large‑language model” as having been trained on Blackwell‑based H100‑equivalent accelerators, despite the ban that bars foreign entities from accessing the technology without a specific license. The administration’s assessment was corroborated by multiple Reuters‑sourced stories that appeared on Investing.com’s regional portals in South Africa, Australia and elsewhere, all of which cite unnamed U.S. officials confirming that DeepSeek “bypassed” the export controls to acquire the chips (Reuters via Investing.com).

The technical implications are significant. Blackwell GPUs, announced by Nvidia in late 2023, deliver up to 30 percent higher tensor‑core performance than the preceding H100 and introduce a new “Transformer Engine” that accelerates mixed‑precision training for models exceeding 100 billion parameters. By leveraging these capabilities, DeepSeek can reduce training time and energy consumption, potentially narrowing the performance gap with U.S. and European rivals that have unhindered access to the same hardware. The U.S. Commerce Department’s notice, referenced in the Kursiv Media Uzbekistan article, notes that the Blackwell line is classified as a “Category 5” item, meaning it is subject to the most stringent licensing requirements due to its dual‑use nature for both civilian AI workloads and military applications.

DeepSeek’s procurement pathway remains opaque, but the administration’s statement suggests the firm may have sourced the chips through a “third‑party intermediary” that concealed the end‑user’s identity, a tactic previously observed in other high‑tech export‑evasion cases. The AOL.com exclusive adds that DeepSeek’s internal documents, obtained by U.S. investigators, list “Blackwell‑X” as the hardware platform for the model’s final training run, indicating a deliberate effort to match Nvidia’s top‑tier offering rather than settle for older A100 or H100 units. This aligns with the broader pattern of Chinese AI labs seeking to “distill” foreign models—such as Anthropic’s Claude—into home‑grown systems, a practice highlighted in recent Reuters coverage of Anthropic’s accusations against Chinese firms (Reuters, “Chinese AI companies ‘distilled’ Claude”).

Policy analysts warn that the episode could trigger a tightening of the EAR’s “catch‑all” provisions, which already allow the Commerce Department to block re‑exports of U.S. technology that could be used for “military end‑uses.” If the administration decides to pursue enforcement actions against DeepSeek or its supply chain partners, the penalties could include hefty fines and denial of future access to U.S. semiconductor markets. The White House’s AI strategy, outlined in a February 2024 briefing, emphasizes “protecting critical AI supply chains” and may now prioritize closing loopholes that enable indirect chip transfers—a focus that the DeepSeek case underscores.

Meanwhile, the competitive landscape in the global AI race is shifting. Nvidia’s Blackwell chips are expected to power the next generation of foundation models from OpenAI, Microsoft and Google, giving those firms a hardware advantage that could translate into faster iteration cycles and larger parameter counts. By securing Blackwell hardware, DeepSeek not only accelerates its own model development but also signals to the Chinese AI ecosystem that high‑performance U.S. silicon remains attainable, albeit through clandestine channels. The Verge and TechCrunch have reported parallel concerns about Chinese labs “mining” proprietary models like Claude, suggesting that hardware access is only one piece of a broader strategy to close the AI gap. As the U.S. tightens export controls, the DeepSeek episode may become a case study in how geopolitical constraints intersect with the rapid pace of AI innovation.