Reuters reported on April 24 that the U.S. State Department has asked its embassies and consulates around the world to launch a round of coordinated actions to focus on reminding governments and companies of various countries to pay attention to what the U.S. calls the risk of Chinese companies acquiring U.S. artificial intelligence technology and intellectual property on a large scale. Among them, Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has been named as a target of relevant warnings. This arrangement stems from a diplomatic cable reviewed by Reuters, which shows that the United States is trying to intensify diplomatic pressure on the so-called "technology acquisition behavior" of China's AI on a global scale.

According to reports, the background of this action is that U.S. artificial intelligence companies have recently continued to express concerns to Washington, alleging that some Chinese companies are trying to copy the model capabilities of leading U.S. AI companies and use relevant results for their own training and commercial advancement. Reuters previously reported in February that OpenAI warned U.S. lawmakers that Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek was targeting the developers of ChatGPT and other leading U.S. AI companies with the intention of copying its models and reversely using them for its own system training.

The memo and subsequent diplomatic cables come just weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to reports. Reuters pointed out that this move is likely to once again push forward the technological competition and security friction between China and the United States that have been going on for many years, and the relationship between the two countries had previously cooled down due to some kind of easing arrangement reached in October last year.

This is not the first time that controversy surrounding DeepSeek has arisen. Reuters mentioned in an earlier report that the Trump administration had considered restricting the use of DeepSeek on U.S. government equipment due to national security concerns. The concerns included how user data is processed and related information may be stored on Chinese servers. In addition, Reuters also reported in January this year that governments and regulatory agencies in many countries have begun to increase scrutiny of DeepSeek's security and privacy policies. One of the reasons is that its privacy statement shows that a large amount of personal information and user interaction data with the AI ​​system will be stored on servers in China.

At the same time, DeepSeek continues to promote product updates. Reuters reported on April 24 that the Chinese company, which attracted global attention last year for its low-cost AI model, launched a new model optimized for Huawei's chip system that day, showing that it is accelerating its deployment in China's local computing power ecosystem. As the United States continues to tighten chip export restrictions and continues to pay attention to Chinese companies' ability to acquire high-end AI hardware and models, DeepSeek's technology path and international expansion are becoming increasingly sensitive.

So far, public reports have not shown that this round of "global warnings" promoted by the U.S. State Department has resulted in new formal sanctions. However, relevant diplomatic actions indicate that Washington is trying to further internationalize the accusations of security, intellectual property rights, and technological competition against Chinese artificial intelligence companies. For China and the United States, artificial intelligence is no longer just an issue of industrial competition, but is increasingly becoming an important frontline in diplomacy, security and geopolitical competition.