The US House of Representatives has stated that Chinese AI company DeepSeek seriously threatens US national security. A committee urged chip manufacturer Nvidia to provide information about the sale of chips used by DeepSeek to develop its chatbot model.
The committee states in a report that DeepSeek’s ties to Chinese government interests are significant. According to the committee, founder Liang Wenfeng, together with hedge fund High-Flyer Quant, exercises control over DeepSeek. This takes place within an integrated ecosystem connected to state-affiliated hardware distributors and the Chinese research institute Zhejiang Lab.
Manipulation and censorship
DeepSeek is a regular AI chatbot that helps users generate text and answer questions. However, the committee states that a closer look reveals that the app sends data back to the People’s Republic of China and poses security risks to users. It also works with a model that censors and manipulates information in accordance with Chinese law.
The committee reports that DeepSeek is powered by tens of thousands of chips. The company may have circumvented US export controls in obtaining them. According to data from the analysis company SemiAnalysis, DeepSeek uses at least 60,000 Nvidia processors. The company ordered thousands of additional H20 chips.
Committee Chairman John Moolenaar and top Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi separately asked Nvidia for information about customers in 11 Asian countries that have purchased more than 499 AI chips since 2020. Nvidia must respond by April 30.
Nvidia stated on Wednesday that it strictly adheres to US government instructions regarding export restrictions. The company added that in the case of Singapore, its products are forwarded to other locations, including the United States and Taiwan. China is not one of those locations. DeepSeek and the Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Export restrictions for Nvidia
The committee’s report on DeepSeek, combined with the pressure on Nvidia, intensifies the US government’s control over Chinese technological ambitions. According to some, these pose risks to national security.
DeepSeek, founded in 2023, gained international attention earlier this year when it released an open-source AI model that it claimed could mimic human reasoning. This led to questions in Washington about how the company had achieved this breakthrough.
The report came after Nvidia announced that it would have to write off up to $5.5 billion in the current quarter due to new Trump administration restrictions on sales of its H20 chip in China. The chip is designed to comply with previous US export rules.