The recent release of DeepSeek sent shock waves through markets and acted as a Sputnik moment for the United States. After the news broke that China's artificial intelligence (AI) model achieved comparable or better results than Silicon Valley's best AI models, the U.S. suddenly faced a harsh reality: The country was not assured of being a forerunner in the AI race.
In response, the Trump administration is considering imposing even tighter export controls and banning the use of DeepSeek on government devices, while OpenAI has accused DeepSeek of inappropriately copying ChatGPT. The current policy approach seems to be intended to restrict China's ability to develop AI, but it could backfire.
