Trump administration orders ban on DeepSeek in federal agencies

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued an order banning artificial intelligence technology from Chinese company DeepSeek Ltd. from all federal civilian agencies. In a notice published on the Federal Register website, the DHS warned that DeepSeek's AI models pose "multiple threat vectors" that could grant the Chinese Communist Party "extensive authority" to access American government infrastructure.

Despite not ranking among the top 10 AI models in a recent government survey, DeepSeek's free app was downloaded by millions of Americans in 2025, prompting the U.S. government to take action. The DHS's decision to ban DeepSeek stems from a review under the 2018 Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act, conducted by the Federal Acquisition Security Council.

The DHS stated that the technology could be used to "track or digitally fingerprint" users and transfer sensitive data to the People's Republic of China if employed by the U.S. government or its vendors. The crackdown on DeepSeek has been ongoing since the company's release of its powerful R1 model last year, which outperformed American rivals OpenAI and Anthropic in several complex tests.

Multiple states, including New York, have already banned DeepSeek from government devices and networks due to privacy and censorship concerns. The latest DeepSeek AI model, V4.1 Flash-1017, was recently released, boasting faster performance and improved reasoning and coding capabilities.