But the story of DeepSeek also reveals just how much Chinese technological development continues to depend on the United States. DeepSeek used chips from the U.S. giant Nvidia to create its model, and, as it turns out, may have also tapped American data to train it. Washington can capitalize on that advantage to choke off Chinese tech firms.

The meteoric rise of DeepSeek—the Chinese AI startup now challenging global giants—has stunned observers and put the spotlight on China’s AI sector. Since ChatGPT’s debut in 2022, the country’s tech ecosystem has been in relentless pursuit of homegrown alternatives,

Australia issued a statement that requires all government entities to prevent the access, use or installation of DeepSeek products, applications and web services on Australian government systems and mobile devices.

The Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs issued a mandatory direction for all government entities to "prevent the use or installation of DeepSeek products, applications and web services and where found remove all existing instances of DeepSeek products,