OpenAI has raised concerns with US lawmakers, alleging that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has been attempting to replicate the work of the nation’s leading AI companies. According to a memo seen by Reuters, the company claims these actions are aimed at copying advanced AI capabilities and using them to train competing systems.
The memo was sent to the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party, where OpenAI outlined what it described as attempts to bypass safeguards designed to protect its models. The company said it had identified accounts allegedly linked to DeepSeek staff trying to get around access limits.
‘We have observed accounts associated with DeepSeek employees developing methods to circumvent OpenAI’s access restrictions and access models through obfuscated third-party routers and other ways that mask their source,’ the memo stated. ‘We also know that DeepSeek employees developed code to access U.S. AI models and obtain outputs for distillation in programmatic ways’
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At the centre of the dispute is a technique called distillation. This method allows developers to use outputs from an old, more established and stronger AI system to train a newer model.
OpenAI alleges that this approach is being used to ‘free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs.’ The company also stated in the memo that Chinese large language models are ‘actively cutting corners when it comes to safely training and deploying new models.’
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Deepseek drew major attention last year after releasing AI models that appeared to rival some of the most advanced US offerings. Their performance raised concerns in Washington that China could catch up in the AI race despite restrictions, as per the report.