DeepSeek Keeps Latest AI Model Hidden From Nvidia and Other U.S. Chipmakers

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek has reportedly not shared its next flagship model with U.S. semiconductor companies, in an effort to optimize its performance.

Reuters, citing sources, reported that this is a move that departs from the usual industry practice that typically takes place ahead of major model updates.

According to the sources, instead of U.S. firms, DeepSeek first granted access to domestic Chinese suppliers, including Huawei Technologies. DeepSeek shocked the global market last year with its low-cost AI model, and it is expected to launch its next large-scale update, "V4," in the near future.

AI developers generally share pre-release versions of their key models with companies such as Nvidia and AMD before the official launch, so that their software can run efficiently on widely used hardware. DeepSeek has also worked closely with Nvidia engineers in the past.

Reuters reported that Nvidia, AMD, DeepSeek, and Huawei did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.

Ben Bajarin, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Creative Strategies, said, "In terms of general-purpose data accelerators, the impact on Nvidia and AMD is minimal," explaining that "most companies do not run DeepSeek, and DeepSeek is being used above all as a benchmarking model." He added that new AI coding tools are reducing the time it takes to make software run smoothly on hardware "from months to weeks."

However, he assessed that this move is likely part of a broader strategy by the Chinese government. He said it is "an attempt to disadvantage U.S.-made hardware and models within China." In other words, it is seen as an effort to reduce reliance on U.S. technology and to strengthen China’s own semiconductor and AI industries.

In connection with this, a senior official from the Trump administration claimed that DeepSeek’s latest model may have been trained in China-based clusters using Nvidia’s "Blackwell" chips, which are subject to U.S. export controls. The official further suggested that DeepSeek may seek to remove technical indicators that could reveal its use of U.S.-made AI chips. The company is also reportedly planning to publicly claim that it used Huawei chips to train the model.