U.S. bans government agencies from using Chinese DeepSeek's AI tools

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a notice on Monday prohibiting government agencies from using DeepSeek's products and third-party tools developed based on DeepSeek, and requiring their removal from IT devices. Documents accompanying the notice state that DeepSeek models bring multiple threat vectors, and that use by U.S. government employees or contractors could cause sensitive data to flow to China; the documents point out that its servers are located in China, where the local legal system allows the government broad access to private companies' infrastructure. The Department of Homeland Security can issue directives to civilian agencies, but does not cover the military and intelligence departments. DeepSeek drew industry attention in January 2025 with a low-cost, high-performance chatbot, released V4 in April, and earlier in October updated a lighter-weight version. The U.S. side previously accused DeepSeek and other leading Chinese AI companies of systematically stealing the capabilities of U.S. competitors.