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The trillion-dollar mystery surrounding DeepSeek’s Nvidia GPUs

There’s a cloud of suspicion hanging over the type and number of Nvidia GPUs DeepSeek used to train its R1 models.

1/29/25 11:23AM

At the center of the story of DeepSeek’s breakthrough achievement with its R1 models lies the Nvidia hardware that powered the servers that trained those models.

In December 2024, DeepSeek researchers released a paper that outlined the development and capabilities of the new DeepSeek-V3 large language model. In the paper, the researchers said they were able to train their powerful, efficient model over 2.78 million GPU hours of computing time on a cluster of only 2,048 Nvidia H800 GPUs. That is a very small number of GPUs for a model that matched or beat OpenAI’s state-of-the-art o1 model in some benchmarks.

For comparison, Meta trained its Llama 3.1 models on two clusters, using a total of 39.3 million GPU hours with 49,152 Nvidia H100 GPUs. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta is planning on ending 2025 with over 1.3 million GPUs.

Released in 2023, the H800 is a GPU that’s similar to the H100 but is tailored for the Chinese market to comply with US export controls concerning national security parameters that the Biden administration rolled out in 2022. Reuters reported that the main thing Nvidia changed in the H800 was that it “reduced the chip-to-chip data transfer rate to about half the rate.”

But The Wall Street Journal reports that government officials found the H800 exploited technical loopholes that met the strict requirements of the ban, but still gave Chinese buyers very powerful AI chips. To close the loophole, in October 2023, the US government banned the export of H800s as well.

It appears that DeepSeek was able to acquire its H800s during that short window of availability.

DeepSeek’s claims are drawing suspicion from some observers in the AI industry, but most appear to be just speculation. Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang told CNBC that he suspected DeepSeek has “about 50,000 H100s, which they can’t talk about obviously because it is against the export controls that the United States has put in place,” and in a tweet, Elon Musk replied, “Obviously.” Musk, meanwhile, has bragged about xAI’s “Colossus supercluster,” which is powered by 100,000 H100 GPUs, and that he plans to scale up to 1 million of the expensive Nvidia chips.

There have been reports of H100s being smuggled into China through a series of intermediaries on the black market, but no evidence that DeepSeek did so.

Adding to the confusion, DeepSeek cofounder Liang Wenfeng said that the company does own a cluster of 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs, a cheaper and less powerful AI chip.

The H100 has earned a status of being one of the most coveted pieces of computer hardware in the AI age. Even when other chips are used, the power is sometimes expressed as a number of “H100-equivalent” GPUs.

Nvidia is in the process of rolling out its next-gen H200 Blackwell GPUs, and last year CEO Jensen Huang hand-delivered the first DGX H200 server to OpenAI headquarters.

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Fortnite returning to the Play Store worldwide after Google lowers fees and opens Android

After years of fighting with Fortnite maker Epic Games, Google is hitting reset on Android — cutting Play Store fees, loosening its grip on billing, and making it easier for rival app stores to set up shop on millions of devices.

The move could also dent one of Google’s lucrative businesses: Play Store commissions.

In a blog post Tuesday, Google said it will let developers use their own billing systems alongside Google Play’s, link out to external purchase pages, and distribute apps through third-party app stores that meet Google’s safety standards. The company is also lowering Play fees in key markets, with billing fees around 5% for developers that use Google’s system, service fees roughly 20% on new installs, and subscription fees around 10%. The changes will roll out on a staggered schedule, beginning mid-2026.

In a corresponding post, Epic said Fortnite would expand worldwide on Google Play. “These changes will evolve Android into a true open platform,” the company wrote. Fortnite returned to the Play Store in the US in December after the two companies reached a settlement following years of antitrust battles.

Google’s Changes Will Open Android Devices to Competition

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Apple debuts $599 Google Chromebook competitor

Apple’s latest product announcement this week is an opening salvo against Google’s ubiquitous Chromebook. On Wednesday, the iPhone maker unveiled the MacBook Neo, which starts at $599 — or $499 for students — the lowest price ever for a MacBook. Apple typically skews to the high end of the market.

The Neo is still more expensive than typical Chromebooks, which are hugely popular in schools, but it’s less stripped down, with a sharper display, aluminum case, and a more powerful processor than many Chromebook models.

Say hello to MacBook Neo

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Musk says Tesla will be one of first companies to reach AGI

He also said we’d reach artificial general intelligence within two years... about two years ago.

Elon Musk Speaks During A town Hall Event In Green Bay, Wisconsin

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Bank of America upgrades Tesla, expecting it to “quickly become a leader in robotaxi services”

Tesla jumped in premarket trading after Bank of America reinstated coverage of the EV maker and upgraded it to “buy” from “hold,” with a price target of $460.

“We expect TSLA to quickly become a leader in robotaxi services, given its ability to scale more profitably than competitors,” analyst Alexander Perry wrote, noting that Tesla’s approach eschews more expensive (but more robust) technology like lidar.

BofA says Tesla’s Robotaxi service could amount to $844 billion in equity value and more than half Tesla’s valuation.

Currently, Robotaxi operates in two markets with heavy human oversight. In Austin, most of the rides involve a safety monitor sitting in the front seat, and in the Bay Area, all rides are driven by a human using supervised Full Self-Driving tech.

Alphabet subsidiary Waymo, meanwhile, is currently operating its driverless ride-hailing service in 10 US markets.

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Waymos reportedly continuing to pass stopped school buses after earlier recall over same issue

The National Transportation Safety Board reported Tuesday that it’s looking into two recent instances of driverless Waymo vehicles passing stopped school buses. The incidents occurred after the Alphabet subsidiary filed a voluntary recall in December over similar behavior.

In the January 12 case, the NTSB says video evidence shows the Waymo vehicle initially stopped for a school bus that had its red lights flashing and stop arms extended. Three human-driven vehicles then passed the bus illegally. While stopped, the Waymo vehicle contacted a remote assistance agent located in Michigan, asking whether the bus had active signals. After the agent responded “no,” the vehicle resumed travel and passed the bus while its stop arms were still extended. No one was hurt.