A recent report from the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on China warns that Chinese AI company DeepSeek poses a significant threat to US national security due to its close ties to the Chinese government. The report, which has bipartisan support, claims that DeepSeek operates within a government-aligned ecosystem, with direct connections to Chinese state institutions and infrastructure.
DeepSeek was founded by Liang Wenfeng and is controlled alongside hedge fund High-Flyer Quant. The company is also closely tied to hardware platforms linked to the government and to Zhejiang Lab, a state-affiliated research institute.
The report raises concerns that DeepSeek’s AI model, which was unveiled in January, collects extensive data on users and routes that information through China Mobile, a state-controlled telecommunications provider whose operations in the US were banned in 2019 due to national security concerns.
Furthermore, the report alleges that DeepSeek utilizes tens of thousands of chips from American companies, most notably Nvidia, possibly acquired in violation of US export restrictions. DeepSeek reportedly possesses at least 60,000 Nvidia processors and has ordered thousands more.
The committee has requested that Nvidia disclose all customers across 11 Asian countries that have purchased at least 499 AI chips since 2020. The report also claims that DeepSeek used illicit training techniques, including reinforcement learning from American models, to accelerate development.
The committee’s findings have raised concerns about the potential risks posed by DeepSeek to US national security, including the potential for data to be siphoned back to the People’s Republic of China, the creation of security vulnerabilities for users, and the covert censorship and manipulation of information pursuant to Chinese law.
