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DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#151

Post by pests »

Andoryuuta wrote: post #125
kazinator wrote: post #67

> chips that are banned in the country > The US bans the sale of these advanced semiconductors to China Whoa there, Bloomberg; just because the USA bans the sale of something to your country doesn't make it banned in your country.

I believe it is very much a two-way ban, depending on the specific chips [0]. [0]: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/9/17/china-bans-tech-...

China banned companies from buying the made-for-China 6000D.

I'm sure they have knowledge of it being backdoored or underpowered/buggy.

Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#152

Post by hinkley »

mullingitover wrote: post #30
cultofmetatron wrote: post #2

this is revenge for stealing their silkmoths isnt it?

and their proprietary tea strains and forcing them to allow opium to be sold in their country and forcing them to give up major port cities and open up trade against their wishes Honestly whenever China gets around to getting its served-extremely-cold revenge for all the savagery committed against it in the 19th and 20th centuries, some chips are going to be the least of everyone's problems.

I think that was the British? We are just getting over hating them ourselves.

Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#153

Post by ComputerGuru »

nostrademons wrote: post #119

I thought this was common knowledge. DeepSeek’s Wikipedia entry says that they trained all their models on Nvidia chips procured before the U.S. embargo to China on them. It wouldn’t surprise me if they continued acquiring them through, well, less than legal means. I also read somewhere (not Wikipedia) that they trained on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini queries, basically feeding in the output of competitor’s LLMs as tr…

> I also read somewhere (not Wikipedia) that they trained on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini queries, basically feeding in the output of competitor’s LLMs as training data

All the labs permitting synthetic data do that.

Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#154

Post by ComputerGuru »

nostrademons wrote: post #119

I thought this was common knowledge. DeepSeek’s Wikipedia entry says that they trained all their models on Nvidia chips procured before the U.S. embargo to China on them. It wouldn’t surprise me if they continued acquiring them through, well, less than legal means. I also read somewhere (not Wikipedia) that they trained on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini queries, basically feeding in the output of competitor’s LLMs as tr…

> It’s bandits all the way down, so adding a little smuggling to that doesn’t surprise me.

Implying it’s *morally* wrong for a Chinese company to bypass US sanctions is hilarious. You really say that with a straight face when even the president admits this is only protectionism?

Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#155

Post by hinkley »

blibble wrote: post #74
strbean wrote: post #4

The phrasing "chips that are banned in the country" seems completely inaccurate. These are chips that the US does not allow to be exported to China. We do not have the power to ban anything in China, that's up to the Chinese government.

it's the standard USian view that their laws apply worldwide

I learned it by watching you, Dad.

American Imperialism is European Imperialism 2.0.

Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#156

Post by qoez »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #154
nostrademons wrote: post #119

I thought this was common knowledge. DeepSeek’s Wikipedia entry says that they trained all their models on Nvidia chips procured before the U.S. embargo to China on them. It wouldn’t surprise me if they continued acquiring them through, well, less than legal means. I also read somewhere (not Wikipedia) that they trained on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini queries, basically feeding in the output of competitor’s LLMs as tr…

> It’s bandits all the way down, so adding a little smuggling to that doesn’t surprise me. Implying it’s *morally* wrong for a Chinese company to bypass US sanctions is hilarious. You really say that with a straight face when even the president admits this is only protectionism?

[flagged]

Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#157

Post by echelon »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #154
nostrademons wrote: post #119

I thought this was common knowledge. DeepSeek’s Wikipedia entry says that they trained all their models on Nvidia chips procured before the U.S. embargo to China on them. It wouldn’t surprise me if they continued acquiring them through, well, less than legal means. I also read somewhere (not Wikipedia) that they trained on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini queries, basically feeding in the output of competitor’s LLMs as tr…

> It’s bandits all the way down, so adding a little smuggling to that doesn’t surprise me. Implying it’s *morally* wrong for a Chinese company to bypass US sanctions is hilarious. You really say that with a straight face when even the president admits this is only protectionism?

It's the moral imperative of every country to optimize for its citizens' economic prospects.

The CIA (and every other intelligence org.) is literally a weapon designed to operate in the grey area to fit the mandate of the policy makers and elected leadership. Many of the things they do are questionable or worse. In the case of the DoD, they do these things at the behest of democratically elected leadership.

Of course US and China will operate in their own best interests. Of course they will both play chess, both name call, both sanction and impede. When it's not a hot war, it is still a never-ending battle for each country's total economic, soft, and hard power market share.

This is every country.

It's geopolitics.

Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#158

Post by voidnap »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #154
nostrademons wrote: post #119

I thought this was common knowledge. DeepSeek’s Wikipedia entry says that they trained all their models on Nvidia chips procured before the U.S. embargo to China on them. It wouldn’t surprise me if they continued acquiring them through, well, less than legal means. I also read somewhere (not Wikipedia) that they trained on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini queries, basically feeding in the output of competitor’s LLMs as tr…

> It’s bandits all the way down, so adding a little smuggling to that doesn’t surprise me. Implying it’s *morally* wrong for a Chinese company to bypass US sanctions is hilarious. You really say that with a straight face when even the president admits this is only protectionism?

Yes. The bans are export controls. They are not banned in china. They are just banned from export in the US. Using them in china is legal in china.

Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#159

Post by jmyeet »

This is the least surprising thing ever and was highly suspected when DeepSeek released their original model.

We've also seen this with sanctions on Russia but they still somehow bought a bunch of TI chips for missiles [1].

As many here know, the US restricts the export of certain technology to China because reasons. This includes lithography machines from ASML, a Dutch company, who have a monopoly on the latest EUV processes. It's geopolitically interesting that the big buyer of ASML products are TSMC in TAiwan as well as Samsung in South Korea (and possibly Japan?).

I expect this will become a national security issue for China and long-term you will see China try and replicate the best lithographic processes and chips such that the gap will greatly narrow. This will take years and involves a lot of depenedent industries but of anyone China has shown the willingness, ability and resolve to pursue decades-long infrastructure and national security projects.

In the meantime, bans on GPU exports to China will continue to be circumvented (eg [2]) and honestly there's no real reason for those export restrictions anyway.

[1]: https://archive.is/S2uD4

[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-justice-department-ac...

Re: DeepSeek uses banned Nvidia chips for AI model, report says

#160

Post by Spooky23 »

qoez wrote: post #156
ComputerGuru wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s bandits all the way down, so adding a little smuggling to that doesn’t surprise me. Implying it’s *morally* wrong for a Chinese company to bypass US sanctions is hilarious. You really say that with a straight face when even the president admits this is only protectionism?

[flagged]

Is it morally OK as long as they pay their 25% vig to POTUS?

The concept of morality in this context is absurd.

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