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Western countries have a track record of being suspicious of Chinese tech – notably telecoms firm Huawei and the social media platform, TikTok – both of which have been restricted on national security grounds.
The initial reaction to DeepSeek – which quickly became the most downloaded free app in the UK and US – appeared to be different.
President Donald Trump described it as a “wake up call” for the US but said overall it could be a positive development, if it lowered AI costs.
Since then, though, doubts about it have started to be voiced.
An Australian science minister previously said in January that countries needed to be “very careful” about DeepSeek, citing “data and privacy” concerns.
The chatbot was removed from app stores after its privacy policy was questioned in Italy. The Italian goverment previously temporarily blocked ChatGPT over privacy concerns in March 2023.
Regulators in South Korea, Ireland and France have all begun investigations into how DeepSeek handles user data, which it stores in servers in China.
The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has also said the US is now looking into possible security implications.
The US Navy has reportedly banned its members from using DeepSeek – though it has not confirmed this to the BBC.
