OpenAI Says China’s DeepSeek May Have ‘Inappropriately’ Used Its Data to Build Rival Model

The firm has attracted top U.S. and Australian officials’ attention for national security implications.

Screens displaying the logo of DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company that develops open-source large language models, and the logo of OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, in Toulouse, France, on Jan. 29, 2025. Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek has stunned the market by introducing a chatbot built at a fraction of the cost of U.S. rivals. But questions are growing over whether the firm may have taken a shortcut.

ChatGPT creator OpenAI said on Jan. 29 that DeepSeek might have “inappropriately” used its data.