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Open weights from four Chinese labs match Blackwell GPU fingerprints, report says
Will DePue of Unemployment Labs said six models from DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, MiniMax and Ant Group since April match NVIDIA Blackwell initialization patterns in published weights.
A forensic report published Wednesday by Will DePue of Unemployment Labs said six publicly released AI models from DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, MiniMax and Ant Group since April 2026 contain numerical patterns that match NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, which require a U.S. license for export to China1,2.
DePue wrote that the traces come from the models' published weights, not leaks, by recovering how initial values were laid out by a deterministic random-number generator and matching that layout to GPU streaming-multiprocessor counts1.
The report said earlier models from the same companies match NVIDIA's Hopper generation, with DeepSeek reading as Hopper through DeepSeek-V3 (December 2024) and Blackwell from DeepSeek V4 (April 2026), and Moonshot reading as Hopper through Kimi K2.5 (January 2026) and Blackwell from K3 (July 2026)1.
DePue said the fingerprint identifies how starting weights were created and supports, without proving, that Blackwell also performed training1. The only other hardware the report identified as able to mimic the layout is a specially configured AMD MI300X, also export-restricted; DePue said that option was excluded for DeepSeek-V4-Flash and considered very unlikely for the other five models1.
The findings do not establish where the chips were located, how access was obtained, or whether export controls were violated, the report said, noting Blackwell systems can be rented outside China1.
Not every Chinese lab showed the switch: newest readable models from Alibaba, Zhipu, Tencent, Xiaomi and StepFun still matched Hopper, and Meituan's LongCat-2.0 showed no NVIDIA fingerprint, DePue wrote1.
DePue said the method needs published weights and a hardware-dependent PyTorch-style pattern, so closed models and some frameworks cannot be checked, and that a Blackwell-compatible start does not prove the entire training run used Blackwell1.
On physical hardware, the report said an H100 reproduced preserved DeepSeek-V3 values bit for bit, a rented GB200 reproduced Kimi K3's preserved rows with Moonshot's seed, and DeepSeek-V4-Flash and Kimi K3 matched Blackwell layouts1. DePue described the DeepSeek-V4-Flash case as conclusive for initialization1.
U.S. officials and earlier press reports had alleged DeepSeek and Moonshot AI were using Blackwell chips without publishing this class of technical evidence, according to the report1. Techmeme circulated the analysis as a roundup item without independent testing2.
Sources
How it’s being reported
2 sourcesChinese frontier AI models carry the fingerprint of export-controlled GPUs
Forensic recovery of initialization patterns from open weights, hardware caveats including AMD, and that location and export-law violations are not proven.
DePue reports that published weights from six models since April match Blackwell-class NVIDIA layouts, while earlier models from the same labs match Hopper.
Analysis of open weights: six models from DeepSeek, Moonshot, MiniMax, and Ant Group released since April carry fingerprints of export-controlled Blackwell GPUs (Will DePue/Unemployment Labs)
Gives this outlet’s account of the story.
Techmeme aggregated the Unemployment Labs analysis as an item pointing to DePue's report on Blackwell fingerprints in six Chinese open-weight models.
Leaves out Method details, Hopper comparisons, AMD caveats and the report's limits on location and legal conclusions.