US orders federal agencies to remove China’s DeepSeek AI from their systems

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has ordered federal civilian agencies to stop buying products and services developed by Chinese AI startup DeepSeek and to remove DeepSeek technology from existing government IT systems. The directive also covers third-party products and services built with DeepSeek technology, although agencies may request exceptions. DHS cited national-security concerns over DeepSeek’s operations in China and warned that sensitive data from U.S. government users could potentially be accessible to Chinese authorities under Chinese law. The order expands U.S. restrictions enacted in December 2025, when a law targeted DeepSeek’s use in intelligence and national-security systems. It arrives amid U.S.-China competition over AI, as DeepSeek’s low-cost open-weight models compete with systems from U.S. companies including OpenAI and Meta. China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing opposes the politicization of technology and trade through an overstretched definition of national security and would protect Chinese companies’ legitimate interests. DeepSeek has faced international scrutiny since its R1 reasoning model drew attention in January 2025. The U.S. has accused DeepSeek and five other Chinese AI companies of using large-scale model distillation to extract information from American AI systems, while OpenAI and Anthropic have separately reported suspected unauthorized collection of outputs from their models.