Global Ban on DeepSeek AI: Which Countries Have Restricted China’s ChatGPT Rival?

Global Ban on DeepSeek AI: DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, has garnered significant global attention for its advanced capabilities and competitive pricing. However, its meteoric rise has been accompanied by mounting concerns over data privacy, national security, and compliance with international regulations.

DeepSeek AI, a rapidly growing Chinese artificial intelligence startup, has come under scrutiny as three countries — Australia, Italy, and Taiwan — have taken measures to ban its services. Here is why these countries blocked DeepSeek AI, which is more popular in comparison to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

As a result, several countries and organizations have either banned or restricted its use. This article explores the reasons behind these bans and identifies the regions where DeepSeek is prohibited.

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But these data protection concerns may only exist with the application layer of DeepSeek’s AI, as running some of its AI models locally reportedly ensures that the company does not get its hands on sensitive user data.

As a result, the Indian government plans to host DeepSeek’s AI model on local servers. “Data privacy issues regarding DeepSeek can be addressed by hosting open source models on Indian servers,” Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw was quoted as saying.

Corporations have banned DeepSeek, too — by the hundreds. The biggest worry reportedly is potential data leakage to the Chinese government. According to DeepSeek’s privacy policy, the company stores all user data in China, where local laws mandate organizations to share data with intelligence officials upon request.

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As the list of regions where DeepSeek’s apps are no longer available grows, we’ll continue updating this roundup. Also included: the public sector departments that have prohibited DeepSeek tech.

The Union Ministry of Finance has cautioned members of its staff against using AI tools such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek, citing data protection risks posed to confidential government information. “It has been determined that AI tools and AI apps (such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek etc.) in the office computers and devices pose risks for confidentiality of (government) data and documents,” read an internal advisory issued by the ministry on January 29, as per Reuters.

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