DeepSeek's chip claims finally get tested — and look solid

DeepSeek has been touting its custom silicon for months, but the benchmarks have been light. Now they're live, and the doubters are quieting down. The chips hold up under scrutiny — not just in the lab, but in the kinds of training workloads that actually matter.

This is a real signal, not a press release. DeepSeek is no longer just a model shop; they're building the hardware stack underneath. That changes how we think about who controls the compute — and who gets to set the price.

Why this matters for us: when the chips are real, the training races get real, and the companies that own both models and silicon start pulling the whole board.