US bars DeepSeek from all federal civilian agencies, including third-party tools

U.S. federal civilian agencies may no longer use products and services from Chinese artificial intelligence developer DeepSeek. The Department of Homeland Security published the order Tuesday in the Federal Register. It excludes Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and its affiliates from federal procurement and requires agencies to remove existing DeepSeek products from their IT systems, explicitly including third-party products built on DeepSeek models.

The order relies on a 2018 supply chain security law and a recommendation by the Federal Acquisition Security Council. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin cited "multiple threat vectors," CyberScoop reported, saying DeepSeek stores data on servers in China and that transferred data "could produce actionable intelligence on U.S. persons and/or government programs." Exception requests must be filed 60 days in advance with a compelling justification, according to the report.

Agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Communications Commission are affected, and DeepSeek is also barred from federal contracts, Engadget reported. Other Chinese models such as Moonshot AI's Kimi and Alibaba's Qwen are not covered, according to CyberScoop. No comment from DeepSeek was cited in the reports.