A bipartisan duo in the United States House of Representatives proposes legislation to Prohibit the application of Chinese artificial intelligence Deepseek on federal devicessimilar to the one that already exists against the use of the popular Tiktok social networks.
The Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer and the Republican Darin Lahood They presented on Thursday the “Deepseek prohibition law on government devices”, that would prevent federal employees from using the application of China on electronic devices owned by the government. They mentioned the ability of the Chinese government to use the application to monitor and propagate misinformation as reasons to keep it out of federal networks.
“The Chinese Communist Party has made it very clear that it will take advantage of any tool at your disposal to undermine our national security, spread harmful disinformation and collect data on Americans”Said Gottheimer in a statement. “We simply cannot risk the PCC infiltrating the devices of our government officials and putting our national security at risk.”
The proposal arises after the Chinese software company published in January an AI model that competed at the same level of models developed by US companies such as OpenAi, Meta, Alphabet and others. Deepseek claimed to have developed the model with a fraction of the cost of its US counterparts. The announcement lit alarms and caused debates between legislators and prominent financiers and technologists from Silicon Valley.
Agitation on AI occurs at a time of intense competition between the United States and China in different areas, including technological innovation. The United States has imposed tariffs on Chinese products, has restricted the use of products from Chinese technology companies such as Huawei in government systems, and has banned the export of latest generation microchips that are required to develop the most advanced AI models.
Last year, Congress and then President Joe Biden approved the disincorporation of the popular Tiktok social media platform of his Chinese parent company under penalty of facing a prohibition throughout the United States; That policy is now waiting. President Donald Trump, who originally proposed to prohibit the application in his first mandate, signed an executive order last month where he extended the period to achieve a long -term solution before the prohibition required by law enters into force.
In 2023, Biden prohibited Tiktok on the devices provided by the federal government.
“The United States cannot afford to lose the technological career with the Chinese Communist Party,” said Lahood in a statement. “This bipartisan and common sense legislation will prohibit the application in federal workers phones while closing the hidden operations that the company seeks to take advantage of access. It is essential that Congress protect the data of Americans and continue to ensure American leadership in AI ”.
The bill would specifically indicate Depseek, as well as any application of the IA developed by the High-Flyer coverage fund, which is its parent company, as subject to the prohibition. The legislation includes exceptions for national security and research purposes that would allow federal employers to study Deepseek.
Some legislators want to go further. In a bill proposed last week by Senator Josh Hawley, the import and export of any technology of China in general would be prohibited, citing national security concerns.