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Export-banned Nvidia chips are behind China’s most powerful AI models — uh-oh, Jensen!
Confirmed
In Short: Will DePue, a former OpenAI researcher leading the nonprofit Unemployment Labs, analyzed the weights of large language models released by Chinese companies and found evidence that they were trained using Nvidia's Blackwell chips, which are banned from export to China.
Banned Nvidia chips behind China's top AI? #Shorts. This AI Pulse
The resignation comes amid allegations that Nvidia violated export controls by selling advanced chips to China, despite President Trump's directives to prevent such sales.
DePue's analysis revealed that models like Moonshot's Kimi’s K3 and DeepSeek’s V4 bear the fingerprints of Blackwell chips, indicating that these chips were likely smuggled into China.
Epoch AI, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that about two million advanced chips entered China in 2024 and 2025 through schemes designed to hide their final destination.
The Trump administration allowed Nvidia to export the less powerful H200 chip, provided shipments took a circuitous route, but this did not prevent the more advanced Blackwell chips from reaching China.
Former Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly blamed the Commerce Department for failing to blacklist a Singapore company suspected of funneling powerful AI chips to China.
The political fallout from the Nvidia spy scandal has prompted questions over whether senior Trump administration officials turned a blind eye to Nvidia's dealings with Chinese-linked companies.
Nvidia's board has said it will investigate, and three congressional committee chairs have asked Jensen Huang to attend a closed-door briefing in Washington on November 18.
The resignation of Jensen Huang and the ongoing investigation highlight the complex and sensitive nature of U.S. Tech exports to China, particularly in the realm of AI.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees export controls, will face questions about his department's role in allowing these chip sales.
Background
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged having an affair with a woman US officials suspect of working for Chinese intelligence, prompting the company to launch an independent probe.
What's confirmed
- "And you will have to ask them about their internal processes."
- Nvidia's board has said it will investigate, and three congressional committee chairs have asked Jensen Huang to attend a closed-door briefing in Washington on November 18.
- As head of the department that oversees US export controls, Lutnick is ultimately responsible for enforcing the rules meant to keep advanced Nvidia processors out of Chinese hands.
- It has raised concerns that high-end Nvidia chips reached China, the United States' main AI rival, in violation of Washington's export restrictions.
What's still developing
- In May, the short-selling research firm Culper published a report arguing that Nvidia had a “ China problem ” because a significant share of its revenue was driven by Chinese demand, either through remote data centers or smuggling in violation of U.S. law.
- While Jensen Huang’s relationships with a customer and two employees have drawn the most public interest, Nvidia’s potential corporate liability for export control violations likely factored into its decision to part ways with Huang.
- The weights still reflect the configurations of the chips used to train them, and DePue was able to find compelling evidence that the most closely watched models, including Moonshot’s Kimi’s K3 releases and DeepSeek’s V4 models, bear fingerprints from training on Blackwell chips.
- Graham Webster, a research scholar at Stanford who focuses on U.S.-China technology policy, said he doesn’t buy the idea that holding the chips back would drive domestic production, since demand for chips is so large.
- Friday, Bloomberg also reported that a company with links to Alice Huang was involved in smuggling banned Nvidia chips to a data center in Shanghai.
- "constantly working to close that down."
- News outlet Axios reported on Wednesday that Trump had approved action against suspected diversions of Nvidia chips to China on at least three occasions this year, but that Lutnick did not act on the requests.