US looking into whether DeepSeek used restricted AI chips, says source

The US Commerce Department is looking into whether DeepSeek – the Chinese company whose Artificial Intelligence (AI) model’s performance rocked the technology world – has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, a person familiar with the matter said.

China’s DeepSeek last week launched a free assistant that uses less data at a fraction of the cost of US models. Within days, it became the most downloaded app in Apple’s App Store and stirred concerns about US lead in AI, sparking a rout that wiped around $1 trillion off US technology stocks.