DeepSeek has withheld early access of its V4 model from Nvidia and AMD and has opted to work with Huawei instead.
This comes as US officials have alleged that DeepSeek may have used Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell chip in China, potentially breaching export rules.
Recently Anthropic also claimed that DeepSeek conducted large-scale “distillation attacks” on its Claude model.
Chinese AI company DeepSeek is preparing to launch its next big artificial intelligence model, called V4, but this time, it is doing things differently.
According to a report by Reuters, DeepSeek has chosen not to share its upcoming flagship model with major US chipmakers like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) before the launch.
3 February 2026
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Normally, AI companies give early access to such chipmakers so the model runs smoothly on their hardware. In the past, DeepSeek had worked closely with Nvidia's engineers.
Instead, DeepSeek has reportedly given early access to domestic Chinese suppliers, including Huawei.
US Raises Chip Violation Concerns
The development comes amid fresh tensions between US and China over advanced AI chips. A senior official in the Donald Trump administration told Reuters that DeepSeek's latest AI system may have been trained using Nvidia's most advanced chip, Blackwell, inside mainland China.
If true, this could potentially violate US export controls that restrict the sale of high-end AI chips to China.
The US official further claimed that DeepSeek may try to hide technical signs showing it used American chips and could publicly state that it relied on Huawei's chips instead.
DeepSeek’s Rapid Rise
DeepSeek has grown rapidly since entering the global AI scene in January 2025. Its models have been downloaded over 75 million times on Hugging Face, an open-source AI platform.
In fact, Chinese AI models released over the past year have recorded more downloads on Hugging Face than models from any other country, intensifying competition with US AI labs, according to Reuters.
Chip Exports Back in Focus
The rise of Chinese AI firms has had sparked debate in Washington over whether the US should allow companies to sell advanced AI chips to China.
Last year, US authorities allowed Nvidia's H20 chip and AMD's MI308 chip, both designed mainly for running AI models, to resume shipments to China. However, more powerful processors remain restricted. It is unclear whether DeepSeek has obtained approval to buy these chips.
Nvidia has separately received a limited license to ship a small number of its less advanced H200 chips to China, though those shipments face strict inspection rules and a 25% duty. The company has also said it is not including China data-centre revenue in its current sales outlook.
Meanwhile, AMD recently reported strong demand for its MI308 chip, generating $390 million in quarterly sales.
Data Theft Accusations
DeepSeek's latest move comes at a sensitive time. Its US-based rival, Anthropic, recently accused the company and two other Chinese firms, Moonshot AI and MiniMax, of improperly extracting data from its flagship AI model, Claude.
According to Anthropic, the companies conducted what is known as "distillation attacks." This involves interacting with another AI system millions of times to learn from its outputs and improve rival models.
Anthropic claimed that over 24,000 fake accounts were created and more than 16 million exchanges were made with its Claude model to extract capabilities.
DeepSeek has not issued a public response to these allegations.
