Nvidia Faces House Panel Probe Over Alleged Supply To China's DeepSeek After Disclosing Hit From Export Curbs

Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) came under the scrutiny of lawmakers shortly after the company disclosed hefty charges related to additional U.S. restrictions on export of its China-specific chip.

The House of Representatives Select Committee on China Chair Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mic.) and Ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthy (D-Ill.) sent a formal letter to Nvidia, asking the chipmaker to explain how its high-performance chips ended up powering Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek's models despite the U.S. chip curbs in place.

In the letter addressed to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the representatives said, "Despite multiple rounds of U.S. export restrictions on AI chips, DeepSeek's ability to develop cutting-edge AI models suggests that loopholes or indirect channels may still exist."

That raises doubts regarding the adequacy of the laws in place, they said.

The lawmakers also expressed fears that if the deficiencies are not corrected, the U.S. faces the risk of losing its AI and technological leadership, affecting economic and national security for Americans.

To clear the air, Moolenaar and Krishnanoorthy sought from Nvidia a list of its customers for its most advanced AI accelerators based on Hopper and Blackwell architecture, dating back to Jan. 1, 2020, communications between Nvidia and DeepSeek, and contractual documents with any restricted or prohibited Chinese entity.

This development follows a bipartisan report tabled by the representatives, which they said exposed DeepSeek's national security threat.

Presenting excerpts from the report, the duo said DeepSeek pursued censorship by design, with more than 85% of its responses manipulated to suppress content related to democracy, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and human rights — without disclosing this to users.

They also noted that DeepSeek is owned by a Communist Party of China-linked company led by Lian Wenfang, and is ideologically aligned with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The lawmakers claimed that DeepSeek's infrastructure is linked to Chinese state-affiliated firms, including ByteDance, Baidu, Tencent, and China Mobile. They added that all of these are known for their censorship, surveillance, and data harvesting.

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