The chair of the House Select Committee on China is raising the alarm on China’s use of Nvidia artificial intelligence (AI) chips for military capabilities.
In a letter sent Jan. 28 to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., called for more export safeguards. He said that documents shared with his committee revealed that U.S.-based chip manufacturer Nvidia provided extensive technical support to the Chinese company behind DeepSeek, a powerful AI model used by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
That support enabled DeepSeek to “achieve frontier AI capabilities” by extracting high performance from export-controlled H800 chips by co-optimizing algorithms, software and hardware, which boosted training efficiency and undercut export-control bottlenecks, according to Moolenaar.
Documents also indicated that Nvidia moved to operationalize and distribute DeepSeek, including proposing to package it as a NVIDIA-supported, enterprise-ready product and using the open-source DeepSeek-R1 model in development workflows, making it easier to deploy and scale globally.
“These findings demonstrate why rigorous enforcement of the Department’s H200 export rule, which requires certification that chips will not serve military purposes, is essential – even if such enforcement effectively prevents H200 exports to the PRC altogether,” Moolenaar wrote.
The U.S. government had barred exports of Nvidia’s advanced H200 AI chips to China on national security grounds, but President Donald Trump reversed that decision last month. Under Trump’s latest directive, H200 chips can be shipped to “approved customers” in China and other nations as long as the United States gets 25% of the profit.
Moolenaar pushed back against that decision in his letter, writing that “NVIDIA’s experience with DeepSeek illustrates why the PRC [People’s Republic of China] Military-Civil Fusion strategy makes it impossible to distinguish between commercial and military entities.”
“When NVIDIA collaborated with DeepSeek, the company appeared to be exactly what it claimed: a civilian AI research lab. DeepSeek was not on any U.S. blacklist. It operated openly as a commercial entity. Nothing in the public record flagged it as a military contractor. NVIDIA treated DeepSeek accordingly – as a legitimate commercial partner deserving of standard technical support,” Moolenaar explained.
It remains unclear whether PRC-affiliated companies will buy H200 chips from Nvidia after reports that Chinese authorities warned companies against buying U.S.-made chips. In July, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said there was no need to be concerned about H200 chips being used by the PLA. Moolenaar disagreed.
“Mr. Huang’s comments reflect a blindness to one of the most effective aspects of the CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party] military modernization campaign: the PRC’s MilitaryCivil Fusion strategy erases the line between civilian and military development, while Chinese law compels all entities to cooperate with state intelligence,” Moolenaar wrote.
He added that “if even the world’s most valuable company cannot rule out the military use of its products when sold to PRC entities, rigorous licensing restrictions and enforcement are essential to prevent such assurances from becoming superficial formalities.”
Moolenaar asked Lutnick to tighten AI safeguards by clarifying H200 chip restrictions to reliably block prohibited end users from gaining access to the chips.nHe also asked for rulemaking to address cybersecurity risks posed by PRC AI models over national security concerns. He also requested a briefing on his recommendations by Feb. 13.
Democrats similarly expressed their concern over the export of H200 chips in a joint statement last month that described the approved sale as “a colossal economic and national security failure.”