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US Orders Removal of Chinese AI Firm DeepSeek from Government Systems
· Confirmed
In Short: According to the BBC (United Kingdom), the order mandates the removal of DeepSeek technology from most government systems.
The US Department of Homeland Security has ordered federal civilian agencies to remove all products affiliated with the Chinese AI company DeepSeek from their IT systems, citing national security risks and potential espionage threats. The directive, issued on July 24 but made public this week, instructs agencies to eliminate any DeepSeek-related technology, including third-party services built on its models.
According to the BBC (United Kingdom), the order mandates the removal of DeepSeek technology from most government systems. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle (United States) reports that China has criticized the ban and warned of possible retaliatory measures, highlighting the escalating tech rivalry between the two nations.
The BBC (United Kingdom) and The420 (India) both reported that DeepSeek has collaborated with Huawei to release open-source software infrastructure optimized for Huawei’s AI processors. The420 (India) noted that DeepSeek’s toolkit is designed specifically for Huawei’s Ascend 950 chips and supports a “supernode” configuration linking up to 128 accelerators.
The Department of Homeland Security’s directive, filed under docket DHS-2026-0628 at regulations.gov, requires agencies to remove DeepSeek products and stop purchasing them. Agencies may submit written exemption requests within 60 days through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for mission-critical functions.
The420 (India) reported that DeepSeek announced the collaboration on September 30, revealing that the toolkit is optimized for Huawei’s Ascend 950 chips and supports a “supernode” configuration linking up to 128 accelerators. The BBC (United Kingdom) did not mention this specific collaboration but focused on the financial and security implications of the ban.
Both the BBC (United Kingdom) and The420 (India) agree that the US has ordered the removal of DeepSeek AI technology from government systems due to national security concerns. The BBC highlighted the financial implications of training DeepSeek’s models, while The420 focused on the technical collaboration with Huawei.
The directive aims to prevent the transfer of sensitive data to China and mitigate cybersecurity risks. Both publications concur that the ban reflects the intensifying technological competition between the US and China.
Despite the differences in focus, both the BBC and The420 agree that the US has ordered federal agencies to remove DeepSeek AI technology from their systems, citing national security risks and potential data transfer to China.
The US government's move underscores the growing tensions in the tech race between the two countries. Both publications highlight the potential for retaliatory measures from China, indicating the complex geopolitical landscape surrounding AI development.
The Department of Homeland Security’s order reflects a broader trend of governments seeking to protect national security by limiting access to foreign AI technologies. Both the BBC and The420 emphasize the need for global collaboration in AI governance to build societal trust.
The order, while specific to DeepSeek, signals a broader shift in US policy towards Chinese AI firms, reflecting the increasing scrutiny of technology imports and the potential risks they pose to national security.
In conclusion, the BBC and The420 agree that the US has ordered federal agencies to remove DeepSeek AI technology from their systems, citing national security risks and potential data transfer to China. The focus on financial and technical details differs between the two publications, but the core message remains consistent.
What this adds
The US Department of Homeland Security's directive, filed under docket DHS-2026-0628 at regulations.gov, requires agencies to remove DeepSeek products and stop purchasing them. Agencies may submit written exemption requests within 60 days through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for mission-critical functions.
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.
DeepSeek has announced a collaboration with Huawei to release open-source software infrastructure optimized for Huawei’s Ascend 950 chips and supports a “supernode” configuration linking up to 128 accelerators.
The order, while specific to DeepSeek, signals a broader shift in US policy towards Chinese AI firms, reflecting the increasing scrutiny of technology imports and the potential risks they pose to national security.
Background
The United States Department of Homeland Security has ordered federal civilian agencies to remove Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek’s products and related third-party services from their IT systems, citing concerns that sensitive government information could be transferred to China.
The US has ordered all DeepSeek AI technology from China to be removed from government systems, citing national security risks.
What's confirmed
- The US has ordered all artificial intelligence (AI) technology from the Chinese firm DeepSeek to be removed from most government systems.
- Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which are poised to list on the public stock market in the coming months, have also claimed to have had their AI models essentially copied by some Chinese AI firms, including DeepSeek.
- Federal civilian agency IT systems must remove all products affiliated with the Chinese AI company, the Department of Homeland Security ordered.
What's still developing
- Last year, DeepSeek said it took about $6m (£4.5m) to train the debut version of its model, while the costs associated with OpenAI's GPT-4 were roughly $100m.
- Anthropic said it logged more than 12 million exchanges tied to DeepSeek's distillation activity over two weeks in July 2026.
- According to the report, the federal contracting database SAM.gov lists DeepSeek under an active exclusion effective October 16, without a specified expiration date.
- 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.
- DeepSeek, the Chinese AI lab that shook Silicon Valley with its ultra-efficient models, is reversing its long-standing "no funding" policy.
- Reuters noted that rivals have poached researchers from DeepSeek, including Luo Fuli, who left to lead Xiaomi's MiMo model team.
- Through discriminatory restrictions under “the guise of national security,” the U.S. is trying to suppress and contain China, the commerce ministry statement said.
- Responding to a Reuters inquiry, spokesperson Mao Ning said China “consistently opposes the over-generalization of national security as well as the politicization of science, technology and trade issues,” adding that Beijing would safeguard the rights and interests of its companies.
- Despite their fierce competition in the field, when their leaders Xi Jinping and Donald Trump met at the White House in September, China and the US agreed to set up a “communication channel” for AI incidents.
- "could produce actionable intelligence on U.S. persons and/or government agencies. The models themselves may contain malware or other security vulnerabilities."
- The company shared new details in a lengthy blog post Monday, which described Beam as a text-only mixture-of-experts model trained on high-compute reinforcement learning to be effective at reasoning, coding, and agentic tasks at “a fraction of the token cost and inference time compute” of rivals.
- "A global fracture in AI governance would be extraordinarily problematic at a time when the need for global collaboration in this is generally accepted as necessary, if we are to build societal trust in AI," she said.