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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

#41

Post by brendoelfrendo »

mongrelion wrote: post #6

I recommend everyone to watch GamersNexus' documentary on the NVIDIA AI GPU black market. They explain how companies like DeepSeek can get a hold of chips that are otherwise banned by the US government to export to China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3xQaf7BFI

One of the keys being, of course, that the Chinese government doesn't care. Yeah it might require mules bringing the GPUs into China but once they're in China, no one is breaking any laws. Of course DeepSeek is using these GPUs! It's not illegal for them to do so!

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

#42

Post by tonyhart7 »

Shin-- wrote: post #10

Good. Unsurprising (well, known), but good. In fact, the world would be a better place if the US would not use their influence to try to keep other countries down.

"In fact, the world would be a better place if the US would not use their influence to try to keep other countries down."

acting like china wouldn't doing the same thing to other country if they ever weld such position

every great power would do the same thing to defend their position, its not unique to the US. only because current incumbent power is we see things this way

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

#43

Post by jjcc »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #18

Did china ban them too? I mean.. why should a chinese company care about american regulation?

Yes. China banned NVidia. Jensen Huang said NVidia is the first one in the history banned by both sides. So Deepseek might find a way to get around Chinese government ban if the claim is true

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

#44

Post by palmotea »

rvnx wrote: post #19

Long term consequences: China outperforms Nvidia, by producing cheaper, faster chips at a large scale, by getting inspired by the IP but using their own production lines. Through sanctions, the irony is that the west removed the incentive for China to respect IP laws. Well done. If they can solve the lithography/ASML issue by getting access to it, then they will be forced to win.

> Long term consequences: China outperforms Nvidia, by producing cheaper, faster chips at a large scale, by getting inspired by the IP but using their own production lines.

Unlike your typical free market fanboy, the Chinese leadership isn't stupid. They were always planning to do that, sanctions or no.

Realistically, all sanctions can do is mess with their timelines for some temporary strategic advantage, slowing some things down and forcing reallocation of investment away from other areas into the sanctioned areas.

The US refraining from sanctions is likely the stupid move, because that lever of control will expire at some point. To not use it is to squander it.

But if there's one thing the US government and its business elite is good at, it's squandering things.

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

#45

Post by stackskipton »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #29
codedokode wrote: post #14

Sanctions just slightly increase the cost of obtaining an item, but don't make it impossible. Electronic components can be bought, oil can be sold, ChatGPT can be used via OpenRouter, sanctioned banks publish their apps under guise into App Store, etc. When there are 200 countries in the world, and money involved, you can get anything. Sanctioned goods could be used to spread propaganda though, imagine, for example,…

This. And it should be obvious. Drugs are banned and illegal in almost every country, yet they reach the US in vast amounts. Why would a ban on GPUs suddenly work - especially since owning a truckload of GPU is perfectly legal in most countries. Smuggling them to where the demand is, is probably easier than smuggling drugs.

It is easier then smuggling drugs because US is not making it difficult to sidestep the sanctions. Hey, this random house in Delaware is buying a ton of GPUs, should we investigate? Nah, our donors don’t actually want Nvidia stock to go down so ignore it.

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

#46

Post by pembrook »

Shin-- wrote: post #10

Good. Unsurprising (well, known), but good. In fact, the world would be a better place if the US would not use their influence to try to keep other countries down.

I agree that a fair playing field for everyone would be the ideal state.

But let's not pretend China doesn't use their influence to keep other countries down as well, and let's not pretend they allow a fair playing field for foreign competitors domestically either.

The US would not have imposed these targeted sanctions if China simply wanted to fairly compete in the marketplace.

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

#47

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #36
mongrelion wrote: post #6

I recommend everyone to watch GamersNexus' documentary on the NVIDIA AI GPU black market. They explain how companies like DeepSeek can get a hold of chips that are otherwise banned by the US government to export to China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3xQaf7BFI

I was just selling my RTX 4090 on Ebay recently and got a ton of bids from Chinese accounts. The winner ($2,325) had Australia set as the country on their profile, but a Chinese name on the account, and the order shipping address was to a different Chinese name (to a regular single-family house in Delaware). Most bidders straight up had China as their profile country. So my 4090 (24 GB) is probably going to get turne…

People with Chinese names do sometimes live in Delaware.

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

#48

Post by Zigurd »

The neo cloud providers, especially those outside the US, with dubious financial backing, that are buying Nvidia chips as if they were an appreciating asset, kind of like being a bitcoin treasury, will be tempted to create some income in ways that break sanctions.

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

#49

Post by londons_explore »

SilverElfin wrote: post #17

I’ve seen comments saying that many foundational model providers like DeepSeek haven’t done a full pretraining in a long time. Does that mean this use of chips is in reference to the past?

Whilst there aren't many papers on the matter, I would guess that pretraining from scratch is a bit of a waste of money when you could simply expand the depth/width of the 'old' model and retrain only the 'new' bit.

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

#50

Post by rvnx »

embedding-shape wrote: post #28
bilekas wrote: post #3

I don't think anyone is surprised by this.. And I'm almost certain nothing will happen. When manufacturing is next door to you, you'll find a way to get your hands on chips.

> And I'm almost certain nothing will happen What realistically could happen? Nvidia is already prohibited from selling their GPUs to China, I guess if you wanted it to really stop, you'd need to prohibit Nvidia from selling GPUs in any other country but the US, and require some sort of government controlled license to be able to buy it inside the US. Neither of which sound like realistic options. So what could anyon…

License leases, this is what they can do.

You log into the Nvidia Enterprise Portal and download a license file that is temporary valid (e.g. 7 days) and bound to the specific serial numbers.

You transfer that file to your local license (DLS) server.

It does not need to be permanently connected to the internet, but it needs to be refreshed periodically.

Your local server now holds the tickets that the GPUs need to use to run (obviously checked by the GPU itself, not on a driver-level, though driver could be a first step).

https://docs.nvidia.com/license-system/dls/index.html

If an account is suspected of violation, they get suspended and need to pass the KYC again.

It's not perfect (as violators can use shell companies), but it is relatively elegant. In case of shell companies, they can get caught one day or another.

Regular users or those who don’t need air-gapped network can just stay online and the lease automatically renew in the background. Friction-less.

Added benefit: nobody is going to try to steal your cards

Minus: enshittification of the world in the name of politics, and Nvidia will lose sales, and backfire at the US economy

I hope they don't plan it

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