WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration is weighing a ban on Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek from U.S. government devices over national-security concerns, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday.
U.S. officials are worried about DeepSeek’s handling of user data, which the company says it stores in servers located in China, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.
Administration officials are also considering banning the chatbot from app stores and putting limits on how U.S.-based cloud service providers could offer DeepSeek’s AI models to their customers, the Journal said, adding that those discussions are still at an early stage.
DeepSeek’s low-cost AI models triggered a major sell-off in global equity markets in January, as investors worried that its arrival could threaten current AI market leaders.
A group of 21 state attorneys general urged Congress on Thursday to pass a bill to bar government devices from downloading and using DeepSeek artificial intelligence software on government devices.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson in Washington and Harshita Meenaktshi in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Porter)
