TikTok faces significant threats as the success of DeepSeek puts it under intense scrutiny

In a statement, President Trump urged American industries to compete fiercely, citing DeepSeek as a wake-up call. This Chinese AI assistant, now the most downloaded app on Apple's App Store, has sent ripples through the AI space with its impressive rise.

DeepSeek's success story, however, is not without controversy. The company reportedly uses Nvidia H100 and A100 GPUs for training, hardware that is banned from export to China by U.S. sanctions in 2022. This has raised national security concerns, with the FCC banning the sale of Huawei devices and the TikTok ban becoming a pressing matter due to similar concerns.

The FBI Director, Chris Wray, has claimed that TikTok could be used by the Chinese government to control data collection on millions of users or manipulate the recommendation algorithm. DeepSeek's AI assistant, too, may have built-in biases that censor any anti-CCP sentiment.

DeepSeek's V3 and R1 models are up to 97% cheaper to use than the competition, costing only 55 cents per million tokens. This cost-effectiveness, coupled with its alleged use of banned hardware, has raised questions about DeepSeek's monetization strategies.

Elon Musk has backed the claim that DeepSeek uses Nvidia H100 and A100 GPUs, a assertion that has impacted the stock of major AI players like Nvidia, causing a $593 billion hit to its market value.

The current status of DeepSeek has prompted calls for stronger export controls on technologies critical to DeepSeek's AI infrastructure. Representative John Moolenaar (R-Mich) has stated that such controls are necessary to maintain American technological sovereignty in the face of DeepSeek's significant threat.

The rise of DeepSeek once again threatens the dominance of American companies in the AI space, much like how Huawei threatened Apple's dominance in the smartphone world. The Chinese manufacturer became the world's second-largest smartphone seller in 2018, overtaking Apple.

The U.S. cannot allow CCP models like DeepSeek to risk national security and leverage American technology to advance their AI ambitions. The current national security concerns surrounding DeepSeek have led several federal agencies, including NASA, to ban the use of DeepSeek technology. Further restrictions are expected as DeepSeek is viewed as a significant threat to American AI leadership, prompting calls for a coordinated national effort to maintain AI leadership.

TikTok faces significant threats as the success of DeepSeek puts it under intense scrutiny