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The Department of Homeland Security has ordered federal civilian agencies to remove AI developed by China’s DeepSeek from their systems – the latest blow to a top Chinese model that has surged in popularity.
Civilian agency IT systems must weed out all products affiliated with the Chinese AI company, including third-party services developed using DeepSeek, according to a DHS notice. The order also forbids any future purchases of DeepSeek’s products and services.
The DHS order said the Chinese company’s models “present multiple threat vectors” and that use of its products “may result in the transfer of sensitive data to the [People’s Republic of China] if used by US government employees or vendors.”
DHS issued the order under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018, following a review of a recommendation and supporting evidence from the Federal Acquisition Security Council. The notice didn’t elaborate on the security concerns that motivated the decision or give a deadline for agencies to take action.
DeepSeek, founded by Liang Wenfeng, is one of several Chinese models that offer cheaper alternatives to leading US products from Anthropic and OpenAI. While their performance has lagged behind top US models, the gap has narrowed over the past year by some measures.
DeepSeek burst onto the AI scene early last year showcasing its cheaper models – which sent major US tech stocks — including Nvidia, Microsoft and Tesla — into a stunning $1 trillion rout.
DeepSeek is a so-called open-weight model that can be customized more easily than the closed models built by Anthropic, Google and OpenAI. Weights refer to the trained parameters including source code and training data of the model, which are kept under wraps in closed models, but made public in open models.
The Trump administration has been increasingly wary about China’s breakneck pace in AI development and reported efforts by Chinese firms to rip off domestic AI technology.
The Commerce Department last year banned DeepSeek from government devices, while the US Navy directed all its members not to use the model because of potential security concerns.
New York State banned DeepSeek from government devices and networks due to “serious concerns” over potential data privacy and censorship risks posed by the app.