Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is expected to unveil its next-generation model V4 in the coming weeks. Reports saying V4 will run on the latest chips designed by Huawei Technologies are drawing attention.

The Information reported on Thursday local time that it would mark a new milestone for China, which has been actively pursuing semiconductor self-sufficiency in recent years.

In preparation for the V4 release, Chinese big tech companies including Alibaba Group, ByteDance and Tencent Holdings are placing large orders for chips Huawei is expected to unveil soon, the report said. Total volume is expected to reach hundreds of thousands of units, The Information reported, citing five sources familiar with the purchases.

The companies want to sell DeepSeek V4 through their cloud services and integrate it into AI applications, The Information reported. As a result, the price of Huawei's latest chip, Ascend 950PR, whose mass production is set to begin in April, is said to have risen 20 percent in recent weeks.

DeepSeek engineers have long developed and operated models based on Nvidia hardware and software. Moving a model trained on Nvidia hardware to another company's chip requires rewriting model-based code and tests to verify the output still works properly.

Given that, DeepSeek has worked directly with Huawei and another Chinese chip design company, Cambricon Technologies, over the past few months to carry out the work, The Information reported, citing two sources.

DeepSeek was initially expected to unveil V4 in February, but the process of supporting Huawei chips also affected the schedule delay.

DeepSeek is also developing 2 variants of V4 optimized for different capabilities. Both variant models run on Chinese chips, the sources said.