January 29, 2025
Australian cybersecurity executives and the federal opposition have sounded a warning about Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek, which has rocketed to the top of app stores globally and roiled sharemarkets with its threat to America's AI dominance.
DeepSeek's rapid ascent this week took investors and analysts by surprise as well, apparently, as the company itself, which said it would temporarily limit user registrations due to repeated outages as it struggled to keep up with its sudden popularity. Its rampant rise also triggered a bloodbath on Wall Street, dragging down shares in American AI giant Nvidia in the biggest fall in US stock market history, as well as those of Oracle, Meta and Google parent company Alphabet.
Little is known about DeepSeek, a small Hangzhou-based start-up founded in 2023 by entrepreneur Liang Wenfeng, who runs a hedge fund, High-Flyer Capital, which uses AI to identify patterns in stock prices.
Last week, DeepSeek launched its free AI chatbot, which its creators say beats the likes of ChatGPT in terms of technical capabilities with a fraction of the energy usage and cost. It is now dominating app store charts globally.
Australian cybersecurity leaders and the federal opposition are alarmed, however, that the company is censoring content and sending sensitive data to Chinese servers, echoing similar concerns about TikTok and network infrastructure provider Huawei.
Liberal senator James Paterson has previously urged Australia to ban TikTok, and said Australians should be cautious when using Chinese-owned apps such as DeepSeek.
''It is clear from the app's terms and conditions that user data is collected in abundance, including what prompts are entered into the app,'' he said.
''The app's policies also make it clear they will hand over this information if requested to do so by the Chinese government.
''We must make sure this does not become another tool for authoritarian propaganda, and I hope the Albanese government is closely coordinating a response with our closest allies.''
Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic refused to indicate whether DeepSeek was a national concern when asked several times at a press conference, saying the government would ''keep an open mind'' and watch for anything that presented a risk to the national interest.
''I think it's too early to jump to conclusions,'' he said. ''We will clearly be informed by the advice of national intelligence community in relation to threats as they might present.''
He told ABC Radio: ''We're going to see more and more of these products being made. People will put these new products through their paces, but there has been a long march towards greater use of AI ... and I just believe that's going to continue well into the future.''
Alastair MacGibbon, Australia's cybersecurity tsar under former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, said Australian users should be concerned about censorship and handing over sensitive data to the Chinese state.
MacGibbon, now chief strategy officer at cybersecurity firm CyberCX, said users needed to ask themselves whom they trusted with their information.
''Anybody using DeepSeek or other Chinese large language models should try asking it about Tiananmen Square, prodemocracy movements in Hong Kong or for criticisms of Xi Jinping.
If it can't or won't answer these questions, ask yourself 'what else will it not tell me?''' he said.
DeepSeek did not respond to a request for comment.
