The U.S. government has directed federal civilian agencies to halt the purchase of products and services developed by Chinese AI startup DeepSeek and to remove such offerings from government IT systems, citing national security risks associated with the firm's operations in China, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The directive extends beyond a ban on DeepSeek's own product—it also encompasses third-party products and services built using DeepSeek technology, though agencies may request exceptions.

The DHS order raised alarms about how DeepSeek handles user data, cautioning that sensitive information belonging to U.S. government users could potentially be accessed by Chinese authorities under Chinese law. This development unfolds against the backdrop of escalating technological competition in AI between the United States and China. DeepSeek's Chinese AI model presents a challenge to American rivals such as OpenAI and Meta by offering low-cost open-weight models.

China has pushed back against the U.S. action. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated on Tuesday that Beijing opposes "overstretching the concept of national security and politicizing technology and trade issues," according to an official briefing. "We will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises," the spokesperson added.

The United States had already taken measures to restrict DeepSeek's use in government contexts. Legislation passed in December 2025 targeted its use within intelligence community national security systems. The most recent order broadens these restrictions to federal civilian agencies, applying to both new purchases and existing IT systems. Meanwhile, China is reportedly weighing export restrictions on 23 AI-related technologies—including chip designs and certain advanced AI models—to address security and misuse concerns, as reported last week.

Since its R1 reasoning model disrupted the AI industry in January 2025—sparking a steep decline in Nvidia shares—the Chinese AI lab has drawn scrutiny from governments and regulators worldwide. A September report accused DeepSeek and five other Chinese AI companies, among them Alibaba and Moonshot AI, of employing large-scale model distillation to extract information from American AI systems. Additionally, OpenAI and Anthropic have each voiced concerns about DeepSeek's alleged use of model distillation—a technique that leverages outputs from one AI model to train another. Earlier this year, OpenAI informed U.S. lawmakers that it had observed suspected attempts by DeepSeek to distill its models, while Anthropic said it had detected unauthorized efforts by DeepSeek and other Chinese AI labs to collect outputs from Claude.