A U.S. House committee chairman claims Nvidia provided technical support to China’s DeepSeek, enabling AI models later linked to military use, raising concerns in Washington over China’s AI capabilities and chip export controls.
A U.S. lawmaker has alleged that chipmaker Nvidia assisted China’s AI company DeepSeek in developing advanced models, which were later reportedly used by the Chinese military. Representative John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, cited Nvidia documents showing the company helped DeepSeek optimise algorithms, frameworks, and hardware to reduce training time.
According to the documents, DeepSeek’s V3 model required only 2.788 million H800 GPU hours to train—a fraction of the computing power typically needed for comparable U.S. frontier-scale AI models. The records cover Nvidia’s 2024 activities and indicate that at the time, there was no public evidence of military involvement.
Concerns over chip sales and national security
Nvidia treated DeepSeek as a standard commercial client, and its H800 chips were sold in China before U.S. export controls were applied in 2023. Moolenaar warned that even sales to ostensibly civilian Chinese entities could violate military end-use restrictions, highlighting potential risks to U.S. technological leadership.
Nvidia stated that China has sufficient domestic chips for its military, adding that reliance on American technology for military applications would be unlikely. The Chinese Embassy in Washington urged the U.S. to avoid politicising trade and technology matters, stressing global supply chain stability.
Earlier this month, the U.S. government approved sales of Nvidia’s more powerful H200 chips to China, with restrictions barring military use. The decision sparked debate in Washington over whether such sales could strengthen China’s AI and military capabilities, with critics calling for stricter enforcement of licensing rules.
Implications for AI and geopolitics
The case underscores growing scrutiny in Washington over AI technology transfers to China and their potential military applications. Lawmakers and industry observers are examining how commercial AI and high-performance chips could inadvertently advance foreign defense capabilities, highlighting the challenge of balancing trade, innovation, and national security.
See What’s Next in Tech With the Fast Forward Newsletter
Tweets From @varindiamag
Nothing to see here - yet
When they Tweet, their Tweets will show up here.
