Why These Countries Are Banning DeepSeek? Is India one of Them? Here’s Our Detailed Analysis

It’s just last week’s buzz when a Chinese AI app that created a stir and left behind ChatGPT with its DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-V3 emerged as one of the AI models giving a hard time to AI stocks worldwide. Yes, we are talking about DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup company that develops large-language models and rattles the Wall Street. The company sent Wall Street into a tailspin, causing a significant downturn for giants like Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Dell Technologies, with their shares facing significant declines.

Here’s why DeepSeek Caused Such a Stir:

One of the main reason why DeepSeek could cause such a huge downtime for big giants like ChatGPT is that its AI capability is significantly more accessible than other AI models available in the market right now. The company claimed that it took far less to create DeepSeek’s R1 model as compared to its rivalled technology developed by ChatGPT.

As soon as DeepSeek came into the market, it crashed the stock market in the US, leaving behind ChatGPT, and has taken the number one spot on the Google Play Store and App Store. As per app analytics firm AppFigures, the app has been downloaded over 1.2 million times on the Play Store and over 1.9 million times on the App Store worldwide. After the success of DeepSeek, US President Donald Trump described the app as the ‘wake-up call’ for US companies. However, the app works very much like the ChatGPT but was built at a much cheaper cost.

The DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng reportedly built up a store of Nvidia A100 chips. To recall, the chips are banned in China since September 2022, which means he has been building up the store a very long time and collaborated them with the cheaper and less sophisticated chips. Additionally, the app uses less memory than its rivals.

List of Countries Banning DeepSeek:

Italy: Italy is the first country to ban DeepSeek powered by its AI models V3 and R1. The reason for the ban is how the Chinese app handles their country’s data. The country gave 20 days of notice to the app.

Taiwan:

Taiwan banned its government agencies from using DeepSeek, citing endangers national information security.

US Congress Office:

The US Congress office are warned not to use DeepSeek. They send notice which states, “[T]hreat actors are already exploiting DeepSeek to deliver malicious software and infect devices. To mitigate these risks, the House has taken security measures to restrict DeepSeek’s functionality on all House-issued devices.”

Australia:

Australia is also one of the countries to ban the DeepSeek over security concerns. \

Other countries and organizations including the US Navy, Pentagon, US Congress, NASA, Texas, and some others have banned the app.