New analyses of open-weight large language models suggest that several of China’s most-watched frontier models were trained using Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs, chips that U.S. export controls prohibit from shipment to China or Chinese-owned firms. The findings emerge amid allegations about a network that moved advanced accelerators into the region and the sudden departure of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
Fingerprints in model weights
Will DePue, who leads the nonprofit Unemployment Labs, analyzed the weights of openly released models from DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, MiniMax and Ant Group. DePue reported that the structure of models including Moonshot’s Kimi’s K3 releases and DeepSeek’s V4 models bear configurations consistent with training on Blackwell chips, according to his research.
White House technology adviser Michael Kratsios earlier said Moonshot had used export-banned Nvidia chips, citing U.S. intelligence sources. The research does not prove training occurred exclusively on Blackwell hardware or that export-control laws were definitively broken; the chips could have been used in offshore data centers, a known path for firms seeking high-performance compute.
Export bans, smuggling claims and corporate ties
U.S. policy bars exports of Blackwell GPUs to China, while allowing shipments of the less powerful H200 under constrained conditions that the material describes as routing to permit a 25% tariff claim. Epoch AI estimates roughly two million advanced chips entered China in 2024 and 2025 through schemes designed to hide their final destination, and it reports 275,000 Nvidia accelerators were imported to Malaysia in that period.
Megaspeed and its subsidiary Speedmatrix have been named in investigations by U.S. and Singaporean authorities. Bloomberg reported that a company linked to Megaspeed executive Alice Huang was involved in moving banned Nvidia chips to a Shanghai data center. Short-seller Culper published a report arguing Nvidia faces a “China problem” tied to demand and alleged ties between Megaspeed and Chinese firms.
Nvidia and Jensen Huang have said they visited Megaspeed data centers to verify operations. The material also reports that Jensen Huang acknowledged a personal relationship with Alice Huang and left his executive role; observers say potential corporate liability and the regulatory environment likely influenced Nvidia’s response.
Investigations by government agencies and independent researchers continue, and reports note some 600,000 H200 chips are reportedly stockpiled in Hong Kong awaiting shipment into China.
Original source: TechCrunch AI