US officials are reportedly taking action against China’s DeepSeek AI and its backing from chipmaker Nvidia, according to a New York Times report citing anonymous sources.
DeepSeek’s release in January sent shockwaves through the artificial intelligence sector and significantly impacted the US stock market, intensifying the AI competition between China and the US. Unlike its primary competitor, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, DeepSeek’s open-source deep reasoning model was made freely available, swiftly becoming the most downloaded app on both Apple and Google’s stores. The development of the model also reportedly came at a fraction of the cost compared to US tech companies’ investments in similar technologies.
On Wednesday, the NYT reported that US President Donald Trump’s administration is considering penalties that could block DeepSeek from purchasing American technologies. There are also discussions about prohibiting US users from accessing the Chinese AI platform.
Earlier in the week, Nvidia announced that the US government had prevented the sale of some of its AI chips to China without a license and would require licenses for future sales to the country.
US congressional leaders have been pushing to further restrict Nvidia’s chip sales to China and launched an investigation into the company’s transactions across Asia. The probe aims to determine if Nvidia knowingly supplied DeepSeek with critical technology, which could violate US regulations established under former President Joe Biden.
Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo responded by stating that the company has complied with US government guidelines regarding product sales and is dedicated to protecting national security.
Since DeepSeek’s launch, several countries, including the US, South Korea, Italy, and Australia, have imposed restrictions on the chatbot due to national security and data privacy concerns.
In February, US lawmakers proposed a bill to ban the app from being installed on government-owned devices after cybersecurity experts raised concerns that the program contained hidden code capable of transmitting sensitive user data to China. The US has previously accused Beijing of attempting to access sensitive data through its apps in other countries.
China has rejected these accusations, calling them politically motivated “ideological discrimination,” and has asserted that the government does not require companies or individuals to illegally collect or store data.
