AI firm DeepSeek is aiding China’s military and intelligence operations, a senior US official told Reuters, adding that the Chinese tech start-up sought to use Southeast Asian shell companies to access high-end semiconductors that cannot be shipped to China under US rules.
Hangzhou-based DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the technology world in January, claiming its AI reasoning models were on a par with or better than US industry-leading models at a fraction of the cost.
“We understand that DeepSeek has willingly provided and will continue to provide support to China’s military and intelligence operations,” a senior US official told Reuters in an interview.
“This effort goes above and beyond open-source access to DeepSeek’s AI models,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The US government’s assessment of DeepSeek’s activities and links to the Chinese government have not been previously reported and come amid a wide-scale US-China trade war. Among the allegations, the official said DeepSeek is sharing user information and statistics with Beijing’s surveillance apparatus.
Chinese law requires companies operating in China to provide data to the government when requested. But the suggestion that DeepSeek is already doing so is likely to raise privacy and other concerns for the firm’s tens of millions of daily global users. The US also maintains restrictions on companies it believes are linked to the Chinese state.
US lawmakers have previously said that DeepSeek, based on its privacy disclosure statements, transmits American users’ data to China through “backend infrastructure” connected to China Mobile, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications giant.
The company is also referenced more than 150 times in procurement records for China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and other affiliated entities, said the official, adding that DeepSeek had provided services to PLA research institutions.
The official also said the company was employing workarounds to US export controls to gain access to advanced US-made chips. The US conclusions reflect a growing scepticism in Washington that the capabilities behind the rapid rise of one of China’s flagship AI enterprises may have been exaggerated and relied heavily on US technology.