U.S. lawmakers in 'uncharted waters' as DeepSeek tests limits of American trade restrictions
Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek could face curbs from the U.S. government as it upends the U.S. AI ecosystem, though enforcing restrictions on an open-source technology could be a challenge, experts said.
DeepSeek's sudden rise has questioned the effectiveness of Washington's efforts aimed at curbing China's access to high-end tech over national security concerns.
For DeepSeek, which relied heavily on open-source code, the additional export restrictions that the U.S. government could impose are limited, said Lawrence Ward, a partner at U.S.-based law firm Dorsey & Whitney with a specialization in national security law.
In terms of the company's potential use of certain Nvidia chips, it might face civil and criminal penalties, but enforcing those penalties may be "difficult if not impossible," Ward said.
On Monday, U.S. lawmakers called for actions to slow down the Chinese tech startup, with some calling DeepSeek "a serious threat."
There are no easy solutions to restrict the use of an open-source model, especially one that is being widely tested and used by organizations and individuals, said Paul Triolo, partner at Albright Stone Group.
One option would be for the Commerce Department to craft rules that require tech giants such as Apple and Google to take down DeepSeek's app, restricting its downloads in the U.S. market, Triolo said, adding that it would, however, be challenging to pull the app off other platforms such as Github.
DeepSeek in December released a free, open-source large language model, which it claimed was built in just two months and at a fraction of the cost borne by other major players. Last week, the company released a reasoning model that reportedly outperformed OpenAI's latest offerings in