The thing is, though, that Deepseek's training cluster is comprised of mostly pre-ban chips. That and the performance/intelligence of their flagship models achieved parity with western models between two and eight months old at the time of release. So in a way, they're still behind the Americans and the export controls hamper their ability to change that moving forward.

Perhaps it only takes China a few years to develop domestic hardware clusters rivalling western ones. Though those few years might prove critical in determining who crosses the takeoff threshold of this technology, first.