A senior U.S. official has accused Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek of aiding China’s military and intelligence operations while trying to bypass American export controls to acquire high-end Nvidia chips. The official told Reuters that the Hangzhou-based startup attempted to use shell companies in Southeast Asia to gain access to Nvidia’s restricted H100 chips—hardware crucial for developing advanced AI systems. These claims mark a significant escalation in Washington’s growing concern over the role of U.S. technology in China’s rapid AI advancement.
DeepSeek gained international attention earlier this year after claiming its AI models rivaled those of OpenAI and Meta at a fraction of the cost. However, U.S. officials now believe that the company’s achievements may have been inflated and are heavily reliant on American tech. The official revealed that DeepSeek is referenced over 150 times in procurement records tied to China’s People’s Liberation Army and has allegedly shared user data with Beijing’s surveillance infrastructure, a move that raises serious global privacy concerns.
YouTube, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google currently offer DeepSeek to customers, despite U.S. lawmakers’ concerns that the platform sends user data back to China through infrastructure linked to China Mobile. Though Chinese law compels domestic firms to comply with government data requests, the direct involvement of DeepSeek in providing support to Chinese defense institutions has intensified scrutiny. The AI firm declined to respond to questions about its privacy practices or its acquisition of Nvidia chips.
While Nvidia insists it no longer sells restricted chips to China and complies with U.S. export controls, reports from Singapore suggest DeepSeek may have acquired such hardware through intermediaries. Singaporean authorities have charged individuals with fraud in a case tied to Nvidia chip shipments to the firm. Meanwhile, Malaysia has launched an investigation into whether a Chinese company is training AI models using Nvidia-equipped servers. Despite the mounting evidence, DeepSeek has not yet been added to any U.S. trade blacklist, though the Biden administration is closely monitoring the situation.