Trump administration likely to ban DeepSeek

The White House is considering multiple measures to restrict Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek due to national security concerns.

According to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to The Wall Street Journal in the US, officials are concerned about how the Chinese company handles user data, which DeepSeek acknowledges is stored on servers in China.

US President Donald Trump's administration will likely implement a rule prohibiting the download of DeepSeek's chatbot application on US government devices.

Officials are concerned that DeepSeek hasn't adequately explained its data collection practices, including how it uses the information and who can access it.

The administration is also exploring two additional potential restrictions: a complete ban of the DeepSeek app from US app stores and limitations on how American cloud service providers can offer DeepSeek's AI models to their customers. Sources close to the matter told The Wall Street Journal these discussions remain in preliminary stages.

The restrictions being considered by the Trump administration are separate from a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress last month that calls for banning the app from federal government devices.