Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025.
Nvidia on Wednesday refuted a report that the Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has been using smuggled Blackwell chips to develop its upcoming model.
The U.S. has banned the export of Nvidia's Blackwell chips, which are considered the company's most advanced offerings, to China in an effort to stay ahead in the AI race.
DeepSeek is reportedly using chips that were snuck into the country without authorization, according to The Information.
"We haven't seen any substantiation or received tips of 'phantom datacenters' constructed to deceive us and our OEM partners, then deconstructed, smuggled, and reconstructed somewhere else," a Nvidia spokesperson said in a statement. "While such smuggling seems farfetched, we pursue any tip we receive."