面对美国出口管制，中国 DeepSeek 计划自研芯片

据路透社报道，中国初创公司 DeepSeek 正计划进入硅芯片业务。该公司开发的大型语言模型与 OpenAI、Anthropic 等美国公司的产品形成竞争。

路透社援引三位知情人士消息称，DeepSeek 进军芯片领域的计划已推进约一年。期间，公司一直在与硬件和芯片领域的潜在合作伙伴会面，并为该项目招聘工程师。

其重点在于面向推理而非训练的数据中心芯片，目标很可能是减少对华为和英伟达两家公司的依赖。

英伟达是北美和欧洲大多数 AI 公司的芯片供应商，但美国出口禁令使其无法在中国获得类似的市场地位。华为在中国数据中心芯片市场占据约一半份额，而 DeepSeek 并非唯一试图入局的玩家；阿里巴巴和百度等中国科技巨头也在采取类似动作。

虽然美国芯片出口管制是 DeepSeek 面临这一紧迫问题的主要原因，但美国 AI 公司也在制定类似的芯片计划。

例如，OpenAI 与博通在几周前联合发布了 Jalapeño，这是 OpenAI 首款专为大规模推理设计的芯片。Anthropic 同样在探索定制芯片设计，但尚未公开可见的里程碑。

以 OpenAI 为例，此举一方面是为了降低对英伟达的依赖，另一方面也出于希望像苹果那样，对产品整个技术栈拥有完全掌控的意愿。此外，在数据中心资源可能持续受限、多家公司争夺算力以扩展其 AI 模型与服务的市场中，从芯片和数据中心层面入手能够获得竞争优势。

DeepSeek, the Chinese startup developing large language models that are competitive with those from US companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, is planning to enter the silicon business, according to Reuters.

Citing three people familiar with the matter, Reuters writes that DeepSeek has been working on a move into silicon for about a year. It has been meeting with potential partners in the hardware and silicon space and has been hiring engineers for the project.

The focus is on data center chips for inference, not training, and the goal is likely to reduce reliance on both Huawei and Nvidia.

Nvidia is the chipmaker for most AI companies in North America and Europe, but a United States export ban has prevented the company from achieving a similar presence in China. Huawei controls about half of the data center chip market there, and DeepSeek isn’t the only one trying to enter; Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Baidu have been making moves, too.

While chip export controls in the US are a major reason this is an urgent concern for DeepSeek, US-based AI companies are making similar chip plans.

For example, OpenAI and Broadcom jointly announced Jalapeño, the former’s first chip designed for inference at scale, just a couple of weeks ago. Anthropic, too, has been exploring custom chip design, though there have not been any publicly visible milestones yet.

In OpenAI’s case, it’s partly a play to reduce its reliance on Nvidia, but it’s also a desire to have Apple-like control over the entire tech stack for its products. Further, getting in at the silicon and data center levels can be an advantage in a market where data center access is likely to remain constrained, with multiple companies competing for compute as they scale up their AI models and services.