China DeepSeek (In-depth Search) has sent out military and information operations that assist China, and may even obtain NVIDIA chips that are subject to export controls and prohibited from being sold to China through empty shell companies.
"We understand that DeepSeek is willing to support Chinese military and information operations and may continue to provide support, which is beyond the public access to the DeepSeek source model," a senior official from the U.S. National Academy of Commerce told Reuters.
The official, who was not willing to name, said DeepSeek obtained advanced NVIDIA chips in other ways to avoid U.S. export controls. Despite NVIDIA chip import and export controls starting from 2022, DeepSeek is claimed to have a large number of NVIDIA H100 chips.
The official was arrested for visiting DeepSeek attempted to use a South-East Air Case company to traverse export controls, but did not disclose whether it was successful, and also claimed that the DeepSeek experiment used advanced chips farther through South-East Data Center.
This report has once again revealed that Chinese companies are trying their best to avoid US export controls in order to achieve the NVIDIA chips that the industry wants. A few days ago, a report pointed out that a Chinese company brought a hard drive to Malaysia with hand luggage to try to rent an NVIDIA chip training model on the server. The Malaysian government is currently investigating the case.
Reuters quoted three people familiar with the matter as saying that when the United States banned chip sales to China, DeepSeek still obtained H100 chips. Although the actual number is unproven, it is lower than the 50,000 chips revealed by Scale AI executive Alexander Wang.
In response to this statement, NVIDIA told Reuters: "Our review shows that DeepSeek uses legally acquired H800 chips, not H100."
Exclusive: DeepSeek aids China’s military and evaded export controls, US official says