A senior U.S. government official accused Chinese AI firm DeepSeek of illegally obtaining and using banned NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs to train its upcoming AI model, as reported by Reuters on February 24, 2026, between 4:15 a.m. and 4:45 a.m. UTC. The official stated DeepSeek plans to delete evidence and falsely claim training on 2,000 H800 chips instead. The official further claimed DeepSeek employed 'distillation' attacks to steal intellectual property from leading U.S. AI labs, according to a statement shared by ChrisRMcGuire on X citing Reuters. AndrewCurran_ on X corroborated that a senior U.S. official told Reuters the model release is imminent despite the U.S. export ban on Blackwell chips. These accusations highlight DeepSeek's alleged dependence on prohibited American technology and IP, with the official calling for consequences, as detailed in the Reuters report posted within the 29-minute reporting window. No prior verified developments on this issue were reported in earlier windows, which focused on President Trump's scheduled State of the Union address at 9 p.m. today and ongoing tariff adjustments.
