DeepSeek aids China’s military, evades export ban: US official

AI firm DeepSeek is aiding China’s military and intelligence operations, a senior US official told Reuters, adding that the Chinese tech start-up sought to use Southeast Asian shell companies to access high-end semiconductors that cannot be shipped to China under US rules.

- MICHAEL MARTINA STEPHEN NELLIS

Hangzhou-based DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the technology world in January, claiming its artificial intelligence reasoning models were on par with or better than US industry-leading models at a fraction of the cost.

“We understand that DeepSeek has willingly provided and will likely continue to provide support to China's military and intelligence operations,” a senior State Department official told Reuters in an interview.

“This effort goes above and beyond open-source access to DeepSeek’s AI models,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak about US government information.

The US government's assessment of DeepSeek’s activities and links to the Chinese government have not been previously reported and come amid a wide-scale US-China trade war.

Among the allegations, the official said DeepSeek is sharing user information and statistics with Beijing's surveillance apparatus.

Chinese law requires companies operating in China to provide data to the government when requested. But the suggestion that DeepSeek is already doing so is likely to raise privacy and other concerns for the firm's tens of millions of daily global users. The US also maintains restrictions on companies it believes are linked to China's military-industrial complex.

US lawmakers have previously said that DeepSeek, based on its privacy disclosure statements, transmits American users’ data to China through “backend infrastructure” connected to China Mobile, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications giant.

DeepSeek did not respond to questions about its privacy practices.