Nvidia Aided DeepSeek AI Breakthrough With “Extensive Technical Support,” House China Chair Warns

Congressman John Moolenaar (R-MI), chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, penned a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that Nvidia provided extensive technical support to DeepSeek, enabling the startup to achieve chatbot performance breakthroughs despite US export controls on advanced AI chips to China to mitigate the risks of the technology falling into the hands of Beijing’s military.

“While NVIDIA asserts its relationship with DeepSeek is “to promote the [AI] ecosystem flywheel and improve NVIDIA’s products,” documents produced to the Committee reveal NVIDIA provided extensive technical support that enabled DeepSeek—now integrated into People’s Liberation Army (PLA) systems and a demonstrated cybersecurity risk—to achieve frontier AI capabilities,” Moolenaar wrote in the letter sent to Lutnick’s office on Wednesday.

Moolenaar continued, “These findings demonstrate why rigorous enforcement of the Department’s H200 export rule, which requires certification that chips will not serve military purposes, is essential—even if such enforcement effectively prevents H200 exports to the PRC altogether.”

DeepSeek’s release sent shock waves through US markets last year – about this time – over risks that Chinese AI models were developed with far less computing power, fueling concerns that China was catching up with the US despite export restrictions on advanced AI chips to China.

Moolenaar explained in the letter that Nvidia’s engineers helped DeepSeek dramatically improve training efficiency from export-controlled H800 chips, and proposed distributing DeepSeek as an Nvidia enterprise product, undermining the intent of export controls.

“Nvidia treated DeepSeek accordingly – as a legitimate commercial partner deserving of standard technical support,” he said.

Moolenaar requested a Commerce Department briefing by Feb. 13 on the enforcement of the H200 and expanded safeguards to protect America’s AI leadership.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s administration approved sales of Nvidia’s H200 to China with some restrictions, including that the chips not be sold to companies linked to the Chinese military. The H200 is more powerful than the H800 chips DeepSeek used.

Last week, Chinese regulators told Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance that approvals to purchase the H200 chips were nearing.

Approval would represent a material bull catalyst for Nvidia stock and a major win for CEO Jensen Huang, who has stated that the China AI chip opportunity alone could generate up to $50 billion in revenue over the coming years.

“If even the world’s most valuable company cannot rule out the military use of its products when sold to (Chinese) entities, rigorous licensing restrictions and enforcement are essential to prevent such assurances from becoming superficial formalities,” Moolenaar wrote.

“Chips sales to ostensibly non-military end users in China will inevitably result in a violation of the military end-use restrictions,” he added.

Separate but notable, LLMs are already being used by the Ukrainian military to more effectively target Russian forces, primarily for SIGINT operations. The rise of LLMs in battle cannot be stopped, and many anti-war critics lack firsthand exposure to modern battlefields, where it is clear that the military use of LLMs is underway. The focus, therefore, should be on understanding and preparing for this emerging threat.