Reuters cited a Wednesday report by The New York Times that the Trump administration is preparing to impose control measures on Chinese technology company DeepSeek, and is discussing banning Americans from using its services. This move is seen as a key layout in the US-China AI dominance power struggle.

According to The New York Times, the Trump administration is taking a combination of measures against the Chinese tech company DeepSeek. White House officials are not only considering banning DeepSeek from purchasing American technology, especially NVIDIA's artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but may also comprehensively block American users from accessing its AI services.

The launch of China's low-cost AI model DeepSeek has shocked the AI ecosystem. Since then, the U.S. government has taken measures to crack down on this Chinese startup and its reliance on NVIDIA, the AI chip manufacturer.

Reuters pointed out that NVIDIA's AI chips have been the focus of U.S. export controls because U.S. officials aim to prevent the most advanced chips from being sold to China to maintain their lead in the AI race.

This week, the Trump administration took action to restrict NVIDIA's sales of AI chips to China.

The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on China said in a report that it had sent an official letter to NVIDIA requesting a response regarding its sales to China and Southeast Asia to review whether and how its chips ultimately power DeepSeek's AI models despite U.S. export restrictions. The report cited an assessment by semiconductor market research firm SemiAnalysis, indicating that DeepSeek may hold 60,000 NVIDIA chips, with 20,000 of them belonging to models that the U.S. has already explicitly prohibited from being exported to China.

DeepSeek, the White House, and the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment, highlighting the high sensitivity of the issue.

The New York Times reported that the U.S. strongly criticized DeepSeek and NVIDIA because it was concerned that China might take the lead in the field of artificial intelligence, which could have far-reaching impacts on U.S. national security and global geopolitics. If China surpasses the U.S. in AI technology, it could develop new types of military weapons faster, such as missiles and drones with autonomous attack capabilities. Additionally, China might further promote its own AI technology, persuading other countries to adopt Chinese standards when building AI systems and infrastructure networks, thereby weakening U.S. influence internationally.

The New York Times quoted Klon Kitchen, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, pointing out that the U.S. strategy in the AI field is to encourage other countries to cooperate with the U.S. and build closer alliances through its current leading advantages in AI chips and system manufacturing.

The New York Times emphasized that the U.S. and China are fiercely competing for global technological supremacy, causing chaos in the semiconductor industry. After the Trump administration further restricted chip sales to China this week, both NVIDIA and another major U.S. chipmaker AMD stated that these new measures would result in billions of dollars in sales losses for the two companies. Additionally, ASML, a Dutch semiconductor equipment giant, noted on the 16th that its equipment order volume was clearly below expectations. ASML's equipment is crucial for manufacturing the most advanced semiconductor products; the decline in orders indicates that the market has already been affected.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7494274367463981583/

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