DeepSeek Develops In-House AI Inference Chip to Reduce Reliance on Nvidia

DeepSeek has primarily relied on Nvidia and Huawei chips to train and deploy its models. As the United States continues to restrict exports of advanced AI chips to China, inference costs and supply security have become increasingly important. An in-house chip optimized to run responses from existing models could reduce the company’s dependence on outside suppliers and potentially disrupt Huawei’s position in China’s AI computing market.

Reuters reported on July 7, 2026, citing three people familiar with the matter, that DeepSeek was hiring more semiconductor engineers and approaching chip design, foundry and memory companies. The project remains at an early stage, with no timetable for mass production. Reuters separately reported in June that the company planned to raise $7 billion in its first external funding round at a valuation of $52 billion to $59 billion.