Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang outside the Capitol on December 3, 2025.
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Nvidia On Wednesday, Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek responded to reports that it is using smuggled Blackwell chips to develop its next model.
The United States has banned exports of NVIDIA’s Blackwell chip, considered the company’s most cutting-edge product, to China in a bid to gain an edge in the AI race.
According to The Information, DeepSeek reportedly uses chips that were sneaked into the country without permission.
An Nvidia spokesperson said in a statement: “We have not received any evidence or information about ‘phantom data centers’ that were built, then dismantled, smuggled, and rebuilt elsewhere to deceive us and our (original equipment manufacturer) partners.” “Such smuggling seems far-fetched, but we follow up on the information we receive.”
Nvidia has been one of the biggest winners of the AI boom so far, as it develops graphics processing units (GPUs), which are critical for training models and running large-scale workloads.
Because hardware is so important to advances in AI technology, Nvidia’s relationship with China has become a political flashpoint among U.S. lawmakers.
President Donald Trump said Monday that Nvidia could ship its H200 chips to “approved customers” such as China, provided the U.S. gets 25% of sales.
The announcement received pushback from some Republicans.
DeepSeek surprised the U.S. tech industry in January by releasing an inference model called R1 that shot to the top of app stores and industry leaderboards. According to some analysts’ estimates, the R1 was manufactured in the United States at a fraction of the cost of other models.
DeepSeek hinted in August that China would soon introduce its own “next generation” chips that support AI models.
WATCH: Nvidia’s H200 AI chip sales to China are a net gain, says Patrick Moorhead
—CNBC’s Kristina Partinevelos contributed to this report.
Correction: Nvidia has responded to reports that its Blackwell chips are being used by DeepSeek. A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the nature of the company’s response.
