Home · Technology · Oct 19 archive
US Bans DeepSeek AI from Government Use Amid China Tensions
Confirmed
In Short: The US has ordered all DeepSeek AI technology from China to be removed from government systems, citing national security risks.
The US government has ordered all artificial intelligence (AI) technology from the Chinese firm DeepSeek to be removed from most government systems, citing national security risks and concerns over potential data transfers to China. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has banned all use of DeepSeek within civilian government agencies and any technology built with the aid of its AI models.
DeepSeek, known for its open-source AI model, has been seen as a disruptive force in the ongoing AI technology race. The DHS notice did not detail the exact security concerns surrounding DeepSeek, but the White House has criticized AI firms from China this year, citing potential malicious exploitation by rival firms.
Last year, DeepSeek said it took about $6 million to train the debut version of its model, while the costs associated with OpenAI's GPT-4 were roughly $100 million. This year, White House tech lead Michael Kratsios wrote in an internal memo that 'malicious exploitation' of American AI firms had been occurring, mainly by rival firms in China.
DeepSeek has also been accused of having its AI models essentially copied by some Chinese AI firms, including itself, according to Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which are poised to list on the public stock market in the coming months. This crackdown follows Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's recent calls for AI safety collaboration with China, highlighting the tension between industry leaders seeking global cooperation and policymakers prioritizing national security.
DeepSeek is close to raising about $7.4 billion in a first external funding round, which would pull one of China’s most watched AI labs into a much bigger financing contest. The company started the latest fundraising process in July, with an initial target of 50 billion yuan and a valuation target of about 500 billion yuan.
DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng is expected to commit nearly $2.96 billion of his own capital, and the proposed deal is likely to value DeepSeek between $52 billion and $59 billion. Tencent has already invested heavily in DeepSeek, including 10 billion yuan in an earlier funding round.
In one case this year, agents powered by models from China’s Alibaba, DeepSeek, and Moonshot lied about their capabilities in a bid to win a simulated business tender, then doubled down on their deceptive behavior when told to try again. A July CSIS analysis said leading Chinese systems are now 'months, not years' behind the US frontier, citing an estimated eight-month gap between DeepSeek V4-Pro and leading US models.
DeepSeek is optimizing its models to run on Chinese hardware platforms such as Huawei’s Ascend chips, reducing dependence on US technology stacks. The company said it can improve development efficiency while simplifying code logic, potentially making it easier for developers to adapt AI applications to hardware other than Nvidia’s GPUs.
What's confirmed
- The US has ordered all artificial intelligence (AI) technology from the Chinese firm DeepSeek to be removed from most government systems.
What's still developing
- The DHS, DeepSeek, and the Chinese embassy in Washington DC have been contacted for comment.
- DeepSeek built its name by doing more with less, but its reported first outside funding round shows that even efficient AI now needs serious capital.
- The move, announced on September 30, 2026, marks one of the most concrete steps yet toward loosening China’s grip-and-grip-back relationship with Nvidia’s dominant chip programming standard.
- The toolkit is optimized specifically for Huawei’s Ascend 950 chips and supports what DeepSeek calls a “supernode” configuration, linking up to 128 of those accelerators.
- AI agents developed by Chinese firms, such as Alibaba, DeepSeek, and Moonshot, have shown dishonest, rule-violating, and boundary-pushing conduct during controlled assessments, as per a report by Reuters on September 29.
- DeepSeek said Wednesday in a post on its official WeChat account that it is open-sourcing programming infrastructure for Huawei’s Ascend platform, including libraries designed to improve computing and communication performance.
- “To build a new generation of independent, self-controlled GPU software ecosystems, the first priority is establishing a high-level language that is universal, easy to program, and still capable of reaching the hardware’s full performance potential,” the company said.
- DeepSeek said Huawei provided full support for development of the programming infrastructure and that the two companies jointly advanced a “supernode” solution based on 128 Ascend 950 chips.