DeepSeek Reportedly Developing Own AI Inference Chip
智东西 · wechat · 2026-07-07
Reuters reports, citing three sources, that DeepSeek is developing its own AI chip tailored for inference to reduce reliance on Nvidia and Huawei. The project started about a year ago and remains in early stages. DeepSeek is currently engaging with chip design, wafer foundry, and memory vendors, while quietly expanding its chip design engineering team. DeepSeek currently uses both Nvidia and Huawei chips; its V4 model released in April is adapted for Ascend chips, and Huawei stated Ascend was involved in training part of V4-Flash.
As the cost pressure for large models shifts from training to inference, developing proprietary inference chips is becoming a consensus among top AI labs: OpenAI has partnered with Broadcom to launch its first inference chip, Jalapeno, and Anthropic is reportedly evaluating its own chip options. Meanwhile, DeepSeek emailed API customers that the official V4 release is planned for mid-July, with the API adopting peak and off-peak pricing.
More from Companies & People
- Google DeepMind Frontier Computation team recruits PhD student researchers in London — PetarV_93 · 2026-10-27
- Aeon's former EVP: AI agents are the most impactful innovation of my lifetime — akumar · 2026-10-27
- Tesla FSD approved in Latvia, the 10th European country; Musk praises smaller nations for moving fastest — elonmusk · 2026-10-27
- AI creator Eduardo joins Reflection AI to work on open-weights intelligence — bigblueboo · 2026-10-27
- Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees amid soaring AI infrastructure spending — Polymarket · 2026-10-27
- Musk hails Grok Bot as 'incredibly competent chief of staff' as user automates inbox triage — elonmusk · 2026-10-27