Six frontier AI models released by DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, MiniMax, and Ant Group carry initialization fingerprints matching export-controlled NVIDIA Blackwell chips, according to a forensic analysis published on Nov. 12 by Will DePue of Unemployment Labs2,3. The analysis found no Blackwell fingerprint in earlier models from the same companies; those earlier models matched NVIDIA Hopper hardware.
The report ties DeepSeek-V4-Flash and MiniMax-M3 to Blackwell B200 or B300 chips with 148 streaming multiprocessors. It ties DeepSeek-V4-Pro, Kimi K3, Kimi K3.1-Pro, and Ling-3.1-flash to GB200 or GB300 chips with 152 streaming multiprocessors. Kimi K3.1-Pro starts from the same seed as Kimi K3, which the report says suggests a later checkpoint of the same training run.
The fingerprint points to the hardware that generated a model's starting weights and supports the inference that the same hardware performed training. However, the weights do not show where the chips were located, who owned them, or how the companies obtained access.
U.S. officials and press reports had previously alleged that DeepSeek and Moonshot AI used Blackwell chips; DePue's analysis provides technical evidence drawn from the models' public weights.