Beijing slammed Australia Wednesday for banning the Chinese AI app DeepSeek on government devices on security grounds, saying it opposes the “politicisation of economic, trade and technological issues”.
“The Chinese government… has never and will never require enterprises or individuals to illegally collect or store data,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Australia banned DeepSeek from all government devices and systems over what it says is the security risk the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup poses.
DeepSeek stunned the world in January when it unveiled a chatbot which matched the performance level of US rivals, while claiming it had a much lower training cost.
Billions of dollars were wiped off stock markets internationally, including in Australia, where stocks tied to AI – such as chipmaker Brainchip – fell sharply overnight.
The Australian government has insisted the ban is not due to the app’s Chinese origins but because of the “unacceptable risk” it poses to national security.
