The United States Navy has officially banned its members from using DeepSeek — an artificial intelligence chatbot created in China — out of fear the Chinese government could exploit sensitive data, according to a report.

The United States Navy has officially banned the use of China’s DeepSeek AI across all operations. In a memo reportedly sent on Jan. 24, the Navy informed personnel that the generative AI model must not be used “in any capacity,

The companies claim they have evidence that the Chinese company trained their AI model by using data it had lifted from OpenAI. OpenAI claimed to the Financial Times that it had evidence DeepSeek trained its AI by using OpenAI's models.

Sam Altman’s OpenAI said Chinese competitor DeepSeek could be committing intellectual property theft. DeepSeek, an emerging Chinese artificial intelligence company, sent shockwaves through the technology world when its AI model surged to the top of the app store in the United States this week.