DeepSeek Goes Silicon, Hormuz Heats Up: Today’s Tech & World Pulse

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is planning to design its own data-center inference chips, a move aimed at reducing dependence on Nvidia and Huawei ^[1]. Citing three people familiar with the matter, Reuters reports that DeepSeek has been working on the silicon project for about a year, meeting hardware partners and hiring chip engineers ^[1]. The push comes as U.S. export controls keep Nvidia from expanding in China, where Huawei currently holds roughly half of the data-center chip market ^[1]. DeepSeek joins Alibaba and Baidu in pursuing custom AI silicon ^[1].

In the U.S., Anthropic is facing backlash after a security researcher exposed a hidden tracker inside Claude Code that quietly monitored users in China ^[2]. The code used “prompt steganography” to flag timezones, proxies, and possible links to Chinese AI labs ^[2]. Anthropic engineer Thariq Shihipar confirmed the tracker was added as an “experiment” in March to fight unauthorized resellers and model distillation, and said it has since been removed ^[2].

On the world stage, tensions are flaring in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s military attacked at least three commercial ships in 24 hours, U.S. officials told Axios ^[3]. The strikes threaten a memorandum of understanding signed less than three weeks ago in which Iran agreed to halt attacks in the critical waterway ^[3]. Qatar condemned the projectile hit on its LNG tanker Al Rekayyat, calling it a “grave and blatant violation of international law” ^[4].

Meanwhile, NATO leaders are gathering in Ankara, Türkiye, for a high-stakes summit ^[5]. All 32 member states are attending, alongside Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung ^[5]. President Trump is pressing allies on defense spending, and the U.S. has announced a phased withdrawal of warplanes, destroyers, and submarines from NATO countries ^[5].

Economically, the U.S. trade deficit surged 42.2 percent in May to $77.6 billion, fueled by AI-related semiconductor imports and record petroleum imports ^[6]. Semiconductor imports alone jumped $1.2 billion during the month ^[6].