DeepSeek was described as being closely associated with the Communist Party and “designed to unlawfully undermine US technological leadership and critical American policies to protect national security”, in a report published on Wednesday.
The report added that the company had ties to military research and strategic labs, including the Zhejiang Lab, which plays a crucial role in advancing China’s scientific and technological capabilities.
“DeepSeek represents a profound threat to our nation’s security. Although it presents itself as just another AI chatbot … closer inspection reveals that the app siphons data back to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), creates security vulnerabilities for its users, and relies on a model that covertly censors and manipulates information pursuant to Chinese law,” the report said.
It also cited research from Feroot Security that said DeepSeek’s operations were funnelling American user data back to China through “back-end infrastructure connected to China Mobile”, and integrated “tracking tools” from other Chinese tech giants such as ByteDance and Tencent.
The committee described state-owned China Mobile as a “military-related” company and ByteDance as “foreign adversary-controlled”, while the Pentagon has designated Tencent as a Chinese military company.