The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ordered federal civilian agencies to stop purchasing services and products developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek and to remove them from government IT systems, citing national security concerns related to the company’s operations in China.
The order covers not only DeepSeek’s own offerings but also third‑party products and services built using DeepSeek technology. Agencies may apply for exceptions, but the directive generally prohibits new procurements and requires removal from existing systems.
DHS concerns
DHS flagged issues with how DeepSeek handles user data, warning that sensitive information from U.S. government users could potentially be accessible to Chinese authorities under Chinese law. Those data‑access risks were the primary reason given for the ban.
Broader context and prior measures
This measure extends a law passed in December 2025 that had already targeted DeepSeek’s use in intelligence and national security systems; the new directive expands restrictions to federal civilian agencies.
The action comes amid intensifying technological competition between the United States and China. DeepSeek’s low‑cost open‑weight AI models have challenged U.S. rivals such as OpenAI and Meta. The company’s R1 reasoning model generated significant industry attention in January 2025.
China rejected the U.S. move. Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, said at an official briefing that Beijing opposes “overstretching the concept of national security and politicizing technology and trade issues,” and pledged to “resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.”
A September report said the U.S. accused DeepSeek and five other Chinese AI firms, including Alibaba and Moonshot AI, of using large‑scale model distillation to extract information from American AI systems. OpenAI and Anthropic have also raised separate concerns about alleged attempts by DeepSeek to distill their models: OpenAI told U.S. lawmakers earlier this year that it had observed suspected distillation efforts by DeepSeek, while Anthropic said it identified unauthorized attempts by DeepSeek and other Chinese AI labs to collect outputs from Claude.
Related developments
According to Bloomberg, China is considering export controls on 23 AI‑related technologies, including chip designs and some advanced AI models, to address security and misuse risks. Since DeepSeek’s R1 model unsettled the industry in January 2025, the company has faced scrutiny from regulators and governments in multiple countries.
The DHS order represents a further step by the U.S. government to limit access to certain foreign AI technologies within American government systems due to perceived national security risks.
