China's top AI models trained on banned Nvidia chips
leading chinese ai models were trained on nvidia blackwell gpus restricted from export to china, posing a challenge to us export controls aimed at protecting ai leadership.
a research effort claims leading open-weight models from chinese companies like deepseek, moonshot ai, minimax, and ant group were trained on nvidia blackwell gpus, which are banned from export to china. this access suggests a significant challenge to us export controls aimed at preventing china from accessing advanced ai technology. the issue is complex, with possibilities including offshore data centers in malaysia. the findings have implications for us tech edge and ai leadership.