Trump Administration Weighing Ban Against China’s DeepSeek: Report

The U.S. government is mulling a crackdown on Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, while simultaneously turning up the heat on domestic chipmaker Nvidia amid growing fears of China gaining a technological edge in AI.Three people familiar with the discussions told DeepSeekIts performance and affordability raised alarm bells in Washington, where officials fear China may be accelerating its AI capabilities to outpace the U.S.A report published by the U.S. Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party on April 16 accused DeepSeek of covertly funneling American user data to the CCP, manipulating information to align with CCP propaganda, and training its model using material unlawfully obtained from U.S. AI models.It also indicated DeepSeek may have trained its model using roughly 60,000 Nvidia chips, including 20,000 restricted under export controls, raising the possibility that U.S. technology found its way into the hands of Chinese developers via unauthorized channels. It comes as trade tensions between the U.S. and China escalate. The U.S. has imposed tariffs on Chinese goods of up to 145% and tightened export controls on advanced technologies, particularly in artificial intelligence and semiconductors, in a bid to curb Beijing’s rise.In response, China has raised tariffs on American imports to as high as 125%, deepening the economic rift between the two powers.In February, Singaporean authorities The committee is also investigating Nvidia’s sales across Asia, probing whether the company supplied DeepSeek with critical hardware in violation of U.S. rules. “We now know this tool exploited U.S. AI models and reportedly used advanced Nvidia chips that should never have ended up in CCP hands,” said Committee Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) in a The committee has In “The technology industry supports America when it exports to well-known companies worldwide — if the government felt otherwise, it would instruct us,” Nvidia said. It added that its reported Singapore revenue indicates the billing address, often for subsidiaries of our U.S. customers. “The associated products are shipped to other locations, including the United States and Taiwan, not to China.”DeepSeek’s rise has also triggered regulatory scrutiny elsewhere. In January, Italy’s data protection authority ordered the company to block access to its chatbot over privacy concerns, accusing DeepSeek of failing to meet European data standards. France, South Korea, and Ireland have since signaled their own investigations into the firm’s data collection practices.DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Edited by Sebastian Sinclair