João da Silva
Business reporter
US officials are considering the national security implications of an apparent artificial intelligence (AI) breakthrough by Chinese firm DeepSeek, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The announcement comes after the US navy reportedly banned its members from using DeepSeek’s apps due to “potential security and ethical concerns”.
Meanwhile, the maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI, has promised to work closely with the US government to prevent rivals from taking its technology.
Earlier this week, DeepSeek’s reportedly cheap yet powerful AI model caused a slump in the stocks of US technology firms as investors questioned the billions of dollars they are spending on new AI infrastructure.
“I spoke with [the National Security Council] this morning, they are looking into what [the national security implications] may be,” said Ms Leavitt, who also restated US President Donald Trump’s remarks a day earlier that DeepSeek should be a wake-up call for the US tech industry.
According to CNBC, the US navy has sent an email to its staff warning them not to use the DeepSeek app due to “potential security and ethical concerns associated with the model’s origin and usage”.
The Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BBC News.
Speaking on Fox News, the recently appointed “White House AI and crypto czar”, David Sacks, also suggested that DeepSeek may have used the models developed by top US firm OpenAI to get better.
This process – which involves one AI model learning from another – is called knowledge distillation.
“There’s substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models,” Mr Sacks said. “I think one of the things you’re going to see over the next few months is our leading AI companies taking steps to try and prevent distillation… That would definitely slow down some of these copycat models.”
OpenAI echoed this in a later statement that said Chinese and other companies are “constantly trying to distill the models of leading US AI companies.”
“As the leading builder of AI, we engage in countermeasures to protect our [intellectual property]… and believe as we go forward that it is critically important that we are working closely with the U.S. government to best protect the most capable models”.
Meanwhile, DeepSeek says it has been the target of cyber attacks. On Monday it said it would temporarily limit registrations because of “large-scale malicious attacks” on its software.
A banner currently showing on the company’s website says registration may be busy as a result of the attacks.
Yuyuan Tantian, a social media channel under China’s state broadcaster CCTV, claims the firm has faced “several” cyber attacks in recent weeks, which have increased in “intensity”.
DeepSeek shot to fame last week as AI geeks lauded its latest AI model and people began downloading its chatbot on app stores. Its rise caused a slump in US tech stocks, many of which have since recovered some ground.
But America’s AI industry was shaken by the apparent breakthrough, especially because of the prevailing view that the US was far ahead in the race. A slew of trade restrictions banning China’s access to high-end chips was believed to have cemented this.
Although China has boosted investment in advanced tech to diversify its economy, DeepSeek is not one of the big Chinese firms that have been developing AI models to rival US-made ChatGPT.
Experts say the US still has an advantage – it is home to some of the biggest chip companies – and that it’s unclear yet exactly how DeepSeek built its model and how far it can go.
As DeepSeek rattled markets this week, President Trump described it as “a wake-up call” for the US tech industry, while suggesting that it could ultimately prove to be a “positive” sign.
“If you could do it cheaper, if you could do it [for] less [and] get to the same end result. I think that’s a good thing for us,” he told reporters on board Air Force One.
He also said he was not concerned about the breakthrough, adding the US will remain a dominant player in the field.
Additional reporting from Fan Wang
