Nvidia Praises DeepSeek, Says Chinese AI is Catalysing Global Progress

NVIDIA has praised Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, Yahoo Finance reported. CEO Jensen Huang said China has made important contributions to AI, including research. Huang said this when he met Chinese and tech leaders in Beijing.

Nvidia CEO’s Praise for DeepSeek

Jensen Huang lauded DeepSeek during a fireside chat with former Alibaba Group executive Wang Jian at the International Supply Chain Expo. He termed Chinese AI as world-class as he singled out DeepSeek’s AI research in the conversation.

“It is incredibly well written. It is absolutely A-plus quality science and A-plus quality engineering,“ Huang said, adding that AI researchers from China lead globally in the number of papers published.

In January this year, DeepSeek shocked investors with an AI model that beat OpenAI on operational costs and development. Although it remains unclear how the Chinese startup managed to develop the model at a time when the US has restricted chip sales to China, its parent company, High Flyer, is said to have stockpiled Nvidia chips.

Catalyst for Progress

Huang also said Chinese AI models were catalysing global progress by giving countries and industries across the world a chance to participate in the AI revolution.

“Models like DeepSeek, Alibaba, Tencent, MiniMax, and Baidu Ernie bot are world class, developed here and shared openly [and] have spurred AI developments worldwide. More than 1.5 million developers in China build on Nvidia today to bring their innovations to life,” he said.

The NVIDIA CEO also commended Chinese firms for going the open-source route- which offers developers free access to their underlying AI codes. DeepSeek and Huawei are among notable Chinese tech firms that have open-sourced their AI model codes. Moonshot, an AI startup backed by Alibaba released an open-source AI model known as Kimi K2.

The startup claims that its model performs better than Antrhopic’s Claude and ChatGPT in some coding metrics. American AI companies are yet to open-source their codes. Huang said that open-source technology is critical in promoting global cooperation on AI standards and in ensuring AI safety.

US-China Trade Complexities

Huang’s comments about Chinese generative AI models came soon after NVIDIA announced plans to resume sales of H20 AI chips to China. The Trump administration committed to issue export licences to the US chip giant in an incredible policy shift. According to the NVIDIA boss, the first batch of licenses is expected soon. US chip curbs had reduced NVIDIA’s share of the Chinese market by close to 50%. The company said that in the April quarter, it missed out on $2.5 billion in sales revenue due to the export controls and was likely to lose an additional $8 billion in the July quarter.

The company expects to raise billions in revenue this year from Chinese sales, a move that could restore its ability to deliver orders that it had previously lost following US AI chip export restrictions. In May this year, Huang warned that Chinese companies like Huawei would benefit more from the US AI chip curbs. The NVIDIA boss is currently on his third trip to China this year.

Huang’s visit comes as NVIDIA navigates the complexities of the US-China trade war. When asked how he manages Washington and Beijing, he said “I’m not balancing anything, I need to have a good relationship with the US government. I need to have a good relationship with the Chinese government. I have great relationships with just about every government.”

Huang also said that NVIDIA plays the role of an educator more than it advocates for policy.

“It is our job only to inform the governments of nature and the unintended consequences of the policies that they make. We can only influence them, inform them, and do our best to provide them with facts,” he added.