Trump administration orders ban on DeepSeek in federal agencies

SHARE UPDATED 20:47 EDT / OCTOBER 19 2026

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered artificial intelligence technology from the Chinese company DeepSeek Ltd. be removed from all federal civilian agencies.

The order, published on the Federal Register website today, warned that DeepSeek’s AI models present “multiple threat vectors,” that could give the Chinese Communist Party “extensive authority” to access American government infrastructure.

DeepSeek doesn’t even make the top 10 in a recent government survey where people expressed their opinion of AI models, but in 2025 the free app was downloaded by millions of Americans to the consternation of the U.S government. At the time a full ban of the app was mulled in the U.S., with one cybersecurity expert calling DeepSeek’s privacy policy not “worth the paper it is written on.”

The new order from the DHS means all civilian agency information technology systems will now have to remove all any products affiliated with DeepSeek from their systems, which includes third-party services developed using the app. Going forward, all purchases of DeepSeek’s products and services are verboten in those agencies. The DHS justified the move by invoking the 2018 Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act following a review of the matter by the Federal Acquisition Security Council.

The DHS subsequently warned that the technology poses a danger to the U.S. in various forms. The agency explained that it could be used to “track or digitally fingerprint” users and may “transfer of sensitive data to the People’s Republic of China if used by U.S. government or vendors.”

The U.S. crackdown on DeepSeek had been brewing since last year, when the company stunned the tech industry with the release of its R1 model. Despite being trained using less powerful chips and at a fraction of the cost of some competing models, the open-source AI system outperformed models developed by American rivals OpenAI and Anthropic in several complex tests.

The Commerce Department last year banned DeepSeek from government devices, while the U.S. Navy directed all its members not to use the model because of potential security concerns. New York State banned DeepSeek from government devices and networks over “serious concerns” over potential data privacy and censorship risks posed by the app.

DeepSeek released its latest AI model, V4.1 Flash-1017 just recently. The upgraded model promised faster performance and improved reasoning and coding capabilities, with early reports suggesting it could compete with some of the most advanced American AI systems.

Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.

Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.

AI work assistant startup Town secures unicorn status after raising $108M just weeks after launching

Amazon introduces toolkit for running PyTorch workloads on AWS Trainium chips

Microsoft targets the 'agentic insider' with new controls for rogue AI agents

Nvidia, Dell back $200M round for AI model developer doubleAI

MiniMax launches M3.1 Flash model, says it cuts AI agent costs by 70%

Elon Musk, Anthropic pledge to give away billions of dollars in shares

CLOUD - BY MARIA DEUTSCHER. 27 MINUTES AGO

POLICY - BY MARIA DEUTSCHER. 4 HOURS AGO

© 2026 SiliconANGLE Media Inc. All rights reserved.