China's top open models were trained on export-banned Nvidia chips, research claims

Nov 13, 2026
Weight analysis points to Blackwell training for DeepSeek V4 and Moonshot's Kimi K3, deepening questions over Nvidia and the Megaspeed scandal.

The leading open-weight models from Chinese AI labs, including DeepSeek's V4 models and Moonshot AI's Kimi K3, carry fingerprints of training on Nvidia Blackwell chips that the US bans from export to China, according to research reported by TechCrunch. Will DePue, a former OpenAI researcher who leads the nonprofit Unemployment Labs, analysed the released weights, which still reflect the hardware they were trained on.

That does not prove the export rules were broken: the chips could have sat in offshore data centres, such as in Malaysia, which the rules do not cover. Epoch AI estimates about two million advanced chips entered China in 2024 and 2025 through schemes that hid their destination.

The findings land days after Jensen Huang left Nvidia over his relationship with Alice Huang, whose company Megaspeed has been linked to smuggling Nvidia chips into China.

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