US Orders Removal of DeepSeek AI From Federal Systems — SkimNews
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- U.S. Department of Homeland Security ordered federal civilian agencies to cease purchasing and to remove DeepSeek AI products and third-party services using its technology, citing risks to sensitive government data.
- DeepSeek faces U.S. government restrictions beyond intelligence systems, as the new directive extends a December 2025 law to civilian agencies, covering both existing systems and future procurement.
- Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning criticized the U.S. action, accusing Washington of overstretching national security and politicizing tech trade, pledging to defend Chinese firms’ rights.
- U.S. officials accused DeepSeek and five other Chinese AI companies, including Alibaba and Moonshot AI, of using model distillation to extract data from American AI systems, according to a September report.
- OpenAI and Anthropic separately raised concerns that DeepSeek attempted to distill their models, with OpenAI reporting suspected efforts to U.S. lawmakers and Anthropic identifying unauthorized output collection from Claude.
Why it matters: Federal agencies must now purge DeepSeek-linked tech, increasing compliance costs and disrupting vendors using its AI. The U.S. sees data exposure to China as a material risk, while Chinese firms lose access to a major market, and American AI companies gain regulatory backing in a contested global tech rivalry.
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