Chinese Frontier Models Trained on Export-Banned Nvidia Blackwell Chips, Study Claims

A new research effort claims that leading open-weight models from Chinese labs were trained on Nvidia Blackwell GPUs that US export controls bar from China, indicating restricted compute continues to reach Chinese frontier developers. The report coincides with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's departure after admitting an affair with an executive of Megaspeed, a firm implicated in chip smuggling, putting export-control enforcement gaps and Nvidia's compliance exposure in the spotlight.