China has given major artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索) approval to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips with regulatory conditions that are still being finalized, two sources said.
ByteDance (字節跳動), Alibaba (阿里巴巴) and Tencent (騰訊) had been given permission to purchase more than 400,000 H200 chips in total, said the sources, who are familiar with the deal.
Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday said that his company had not received such information.
Photo: AFP
He added that he believed that China was still finalizing the deal.
Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment on DeepSeek’s approval.
The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce have granted approvals for all four companies, but have stipulated that they would impose conditions that are still being finalized, the sources said.
The conditions are being decided by China’s state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), one of the people said.
The ministries and the NDRC did not answer requests for comment.
DeepSeek, which rattled the global tech sector early last year by launching AI models that cost a fraction of those being developed by US rivals such as OpenAI, did not answer a request for comment.
The H200, Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI chip, has become a serious point of contention for US-China relations.
Despite robust demand from Chinese firms and US approval for exports, Beijing’s hesitation to allow imports has been the main barrier to shipments.
The US earlier this month formally cleared the way for Nvidia to sell the H200 to China, where the company is seeing strong appetite.
However, Chinese authorities have the final say on whether they would allow it to be shipped in.
Any purchases of H200 chips by DeepSeek could draw scrutiny by US lawmakers.
Reuters on Wednesday reported that a senior US lawmaker had alleged that Nvidia had helped DeepSeek hone AI models that were later used by the Chinese military, according to a letter sent to US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
DeepSeek is expected to launch its next-generation AI model, V4, featuring strong coding capabilities, in the middle of next month, tech reporting outlet The Information reported earlier this month.
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