Nvidia Denies Claims Of DeepSeek Using Banned Blackwell AI Chips: Report

• Nvidia has refuted earlier claims that China’s DeepSeek has been smuggling its banned Blackwell chips into the country. 
• The statement comes in response to the allegation made in an earlier report by The Information. 
• An Nvidia spokesperson said the smuggling allegation seems far-fetched, but added that the company looks into all tips it receives.
   

Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) has denied claims that China’s DeepSeek has deployed its banned Blackwell chips, according to a report from CNBC. 

Earlier on Wednesday, The Information reported that the Chinese artificial intelligence startup had used Nvidia’s chips to develop an upcoming AI model. The U.S. has banned the export of Blackwell chips to China to maintain a competitive advantage in the AI game. 

“We haven’t seen any substantiation or received tips of ‘phantom datacenters’ constructed to deceive us and our OEM partners, then deconstructed, smuggled, and reconstructed somewhere else,” a Nvidia spokesperson said, according to the CNBC report. “While such smuggling seems far-fetched, we pursue any tip we receive.”

Overview of Smuggling Allegations

According to The Information report, DeepSeek allegedly routed Nvidia’s Blackwell chips installed in data centers in other countries that were cleared after server equipment inspection. The chips were dismantled and then shipped to China. 

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would allow the export of Nvidia’s H200 chips, an older version compared to Blackwell, to select buyers in China and other countries if they met conditions of “strong national security.” However, a ban on the export of Blackwell chips is still in place. 

Meanwhile, China’s DeepSeek shot to fame in early 2025 because of its low-cost and efficient AI models that rivalled the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. The company had indicated that its latest model, released in September, was in association with Chinese chipmakers. 

How Did Stocktwits Users React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around NVDA dropped from ‘neutral’ to ‘bearish’ territory over the past 24 hours, while message volume remained at ‘low’ levels at the time of writing.

Shares of Nvidia were down about 1.3% at the time of writing. NVDA shares have gained over 35% in the last year. 

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

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