Part 4/11:
At the heart of this crisis are Nvidia’s H20 chips, which Deepseek's models rely heavily upon. Due to US export controls imposed on Chinese technology firms, the supply of these chips has been drastically restricted. Nvidia's H20 chips are considered a watered-down version tailored for export to China, but demand remains sky-high. In just the first quarter of 2025, Chinese companies placed a staggering $16 billion worth of orders for these chips — a demand outstripping supply, which shipped only around 1 million units in all of 2024.