The Information reported on 12 November, citing people familiar, that companies tied to a person whom reports link to Megaspeed invested in DeepSeek and promised the Chinese AI lab Nvidia chips. Relays of the report say the money went in through special-purpose vehicles that do not appear on DeepSeek’s shareholder registry, and that it is unconfirmed whether any Blackwell chips were delivered.
Seeking Alpha’s summary of the report puts one investment at $14 million in DeepSeek’s second funding round. By our arithmetic, that is about 0.09% of the round of about $15.8 billion that PANews, citing The Information, reported in October. These are reported allegations, not findings, and none of the companies has commented in the reports we read.
Business Pill · GPUs Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on why AI runs on GPUs. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss DeepSeek, Megaspeed or this report.
The key insight: As we read the relays, the reported mechanism matters more than the sum: $14 million is about 0.09% of DeepSeek’s round by our arithmetic, but the report ties the investment to a promise of Nvidia chips and to vehicles that do not appear on DeepSeek’s shareholder registry, while delivery of any Blackwell chips is unconfirmed.
The Information’s article is behind a paywall, and we read its headline only: it says the companies invested in DeepSeek, “Promising Nvidia Chips”. FirstSquawk relayed it on X at 15:05 UTC as firms that “INVESTED IN DEEPSEEK TO SUPPLY BLACKWELL CHIPS”. Reuters carried a brief under a matching headline.
Visegrad24, relaying the report, wrote that the firms “invested through special purpose vehicles and do not appear on DeepSeek’s shareholder registry”. The same post says an affiliated entity, Litong Inc., “has acted as a major supplier of black-market Nvidia AI chips”, and that “It is unconfirmed whether the Blackwell chips were delivered”.
NDTV Profit described the report as saying the companies invested in “DeepSeek’s second funding round” and pledged Blackwell chips, and labelled its own story developing. We do not repeat material in the relays about the person behind the companies.
The dated record around The Information’s report of 12 November 2026: US licence rules (87 FR 62186, 91 FR 1684), the December 2025 report and Nvidia statement (CNBC), DeepSeek’s round as PANews reported it citing The Information, Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs statement, and the $14 million figure in Seeking Alpha’s summary of the report. Reported claims, not findings; delivery of Blackwell chips is unconfirmed per the relays.
The $14 Million and the Round
According to Seeking Alpha’s summary, DeepSeek employees introduced investors to a company called Century Litong and its parent during the second round. The summary says the parent invested $14 million through special-purpose vehicles set up by a Beijing-based venture capital firm, and that “It’s unknown how much Litong invested”.
PANews, citing The Information, reported in October that the round raised 105.5 billion yuan, about $15.8 billion, as our piece on the round records. On those figures, $14 million is about 0.09% of the round, or less than $1 in every $1,000, by our arithmetic. State-owned investors put in up to about $4.3 billion, on the 27% share in Techmeme’s summary of The Information.
The Seeking Alpha summary also says Century Litong was named one of Nvidia’s preferred cloud partners shortly after its founding in 2023, and that it imported some 240,000 Nvidia chips valued at $7.5 billion, according to the report. That is about $31,000 a chip on average, by our arithmetic.
Where Blackwell Stands Under US Rules
A Bureau of Industry and Security rule published on 15 January 2026 moved licence reviews for exports to China and Macau from a presumption of denial to case-by-case review for “the Nvidia H200 and its equivalents, as well as less advanced chips”, with conditions. The rule’s summary names no Blackwell chip. CNBC wrote in December 2025 that the US “has banned the export of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips” to China. Our explainer on chip export rules sets out each change.
This is not the first report on DeepSeek and Blackwell. The Information reported in December 2025 that DeepSeek was using such chips, and an Nvidia spokesperson said then, in a statement carried by CNBC: “While such smuggling seems far-fetched, we pursue any tip we receive”. That was 337 days before this report, by our count. Business Upturn wrote on 12 November that DeepSeek “has not publicly confirmed the reported use of restricted Blackwell processors”.
Megaspeed’s Position
Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs said on 12 November that Megaspeed is still under police investigation together with six other individuals, as covered in our piece on the Singapore probe. Megaspeed said the same day that it is ready to “cooperate fully with any other relevant U.S. government authority”.
Megaspeed has denied any illegal chip transfers since its statement of 23 December 2025, as our explainer on Megaspeed records. Neither statement addresses The Information’s report on DeepSeek.
The Structural Read
As we read the January rule next to the report, the US eased licence review only for the H200 and less advanced chips, so the chips the report concerns sit above the line the rule moved.
As we read the October and November reports together, both tie DeepSeek’s funding to access to Nvidia chips: Techmeme’s summary linked the round’s size to black-market Blackwell prices, and the new report, as relayed, links one investment to a promise of chips.
Visegrad24, relaying The Information’s report, 12 November 2026
“It is unconfirmed whether the Blackwell chips were delivered.”
Three Implications
FOR DEEPSEEK The relays say the investments went through vehicles that do not appear on its shareholder registry; DeepSeek has not commented in the reports we read.
FOR NVIDIA The report, as relayed, concerns chips promised by third parties; an Nvidia spokesperson said in December 2025 that such smuggling seemed far-fetched and that it pursues any tip it receives.
FOR EXPORT ENFORCEMENT The 15 January rule moved only the H200 and less advanced chips to case-by-case review, and Singapore says its Megaspeed investigation is ongoing.
The analysis puts it this way: “This entire ecosystem has been shaped by constraints, bottlenecks, chokepoints, and scarcity at every layer.”
As we read it, a chip that cannot be licensed for export is that kind of chokepoint, and the report describes capital being used to reach past it. The framework does not discuss DeepSeek, Megaspeed or this report.
Round size and the 27% state share as PANews and Techmeme reported them citing The Information (30 October 2026); the $14 million from Seeking Alpha’s summary of The Information’s 12 November report. Reported figures, not company disclosures; 0.09% and up to $4.3 billion are our arithmetic.
What Is Not Established
We could not read The Information’s article beyond its headline. The details here come from relays: FirstSquawk, Visegrad24, Seeking Alpha’s summary, NDTV Profit, Bloomingbit and Reuters’ headline. Among them, only Seeking Alpha’s summary gives the $14 million figure. As relayed, the report says it is unconfirmed whether Blackwell chips were delivered.
The relays carry no comment from DeepSeek, Megaspeed or Century Litong, and our searches found no statement from them on the report. We did not contact them. The claims are The Information’s reporting, citing people familiar; the sources we read describe no court or regulator finding on them.
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The Information reported, citing people familiar, that firms tied to a person linked to the Megaspeed case invested in DeepSeek, through vehicles off its shareholder registry, while promising Nvidia chips. The one figure relayed, $14 million, is about 0.09% of DeepSeek’s round by our arithmetic, and the relays say Blackwell delivery is unconfirmed.
A note on sourcing. The Information’s report of 12 November 2026 is behind a paywall; we read its headline only, and every detail of it here is attributed to the relays we read: FirstSquawk and Visegrad24 on X, Seeking Alpha’s summary, a Reuters brief headline, NDTV Profit, Business Upturn and Bloomingbit. The report cites people familiar; its claims are allegations, not findings. We have not named the individual the report concerns.
Context comes from the Federal Register (91 FR 1684), CNBC of 10 December 2025 and our own earlier pieces on DeepSeek’s round and on Megaspeed. Percentages, the per-chip average and day counts are our arithmetic. We did not contact DeepSeek, Megaspeed, Century Litong or Nvidia for this piece.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
