USA Targets DeepSeek, Weighs Restrictions On China's AI Firm That Shook Nvidia's Market Value By $600 Billion

The Trump administration is considering restricting Chinese artificial intelligence upstart DeepSeek, including banning its chatbot from government devices.

DeepSeek has made its AI models open-source, making them freely available to download and copy. 

The U.S. Navy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have banned DeepSeek’s app, citing national security concerns, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

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According to the report, several U.S. allies, including Italy, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Taiwan, have limited the use of DeepSeek. DeepSeek’s handling of user data has sparked national security concerns.

The Wall Street Journal writes that the White House plans to prohibit people from downloading DeepSeek’s chatbot app onto U.S. government devices.

U.S. is also considering banning the DeepSeek app from U.S. app stores and limiting U.S.-based cloud service provider offers on DeepSeek’s AI models.

Earlier in 2025, DeepSeek’s claims of its AI model built at a fraction of the cost of its U.S. rivals cost Nvidia Corp NVDA $600 billion in market cap in a single day.

DeepSeek’s AI model fueled a $1 trillion market wipeout, prompting U.S. regulators to tighten semiconductor restrictions.

Reportedly, the U.S. is probing DeepSeek for possible Nvidia chip embargo violations.

Reportedly, DeepSeek trained its V3 model on Nvidia’s tailor-made H800 chips for China, which the U.S. banned in October 2023. This prompted Nvidia to design the H20 chips. The Trump administration is now weighing the restriction of the H20 chips.

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• Alibaba Expands AI Push With New QwQ-32B Model Taking on DeepSeek In China’s AI Race

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