by AFP Workers Writers
Washington, United States (AFP) Jan 30, 2026
A gaggle of US lawmakers issued a warning Thursday over permitting tech large Nvidia to promote superior chips in China, alleging that its assist to AI startup DeepSeek has helped enhance Chinese language navy capabilities.
“When Nvidia know-how finally ends up powering China’s navy, that is not innovation; it is a safety failure,” the Choose Committee on China mentioned in an X submit.
“Nvidia’s merchandise have been utilized by DeepSeek and ended up supporting an AI mannequin utilized by the PLA,” it mentioned, referring to China’s Folks’s Liberation Military.
California-based Nvidia is the world’s most respected firm as a result of its synthetic intelligence chips are in such big demand.
But it surely has been caught in a geopolitical tussle between the USA and China as they compete within the fast-moving AI sector.
An Nvidia spokesperson hit again on the declare, saying China “has greater than sufficient home chips for all of its navy functions, with thousands and thousands to spare,” and “it is mindless for the Chinese language navy to rely on American know-how.”
“The administration’s critics are unintentionally selling the pursuits of international rivals,” they added.
The submit from the 23-member bipartisan committee included a replica of a letter addressed to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, detailing the allegations.
“Paperwork offered to the committee reveal Nvidia offered in depth technical assist that enabled DeepSeek — now built-in into Folks’s Liberation Military (PLA) methods and a demonstrated cyber safety threat — to attain frontier AI capabilities,” it mentioned.
Final 12 months, a low-cost generative AI mannequin from China’s DeepSeek, on par with US rivals, upended assumptions of American dominance within the fast-moving area.
The committee’s letter, dated Wednesday, mentioned Nvidia had handled DeepSeek “as a respectable industrial companion deserving of ordinary technical assist.”
However DeepSeek routes People’ information to the Chinese language authorities “by infrastructure tied to a US-designated Chinese language navy firm,” it mentioned.
The letter additionally talked about a Jamestown Basis report from October, which cited PLA procurement paperwork to conclude that the Chinese language navy was utilizing homegrown AI methods together with DeepSeek, and deliberate to combine it throughout its operations.
The lawmakers referred to as for “clarifying steerage” on President Donald Trump’s transfer to permit a high-end Nvidia AI chip, the H200 mannequin, to be bought in China, softening restrictions imposed by his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration.
Measures ought to be taken “to stop prohibited finish customers from gaining the kind of entry the PLA gained from DeepSeek,” they mentioned.
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