South Korean ministries and cops blocking DeepSeek’s access to work computer systems

South Korean ministries and police said Thursday they were obstructing DeepSeek’s access to their computer systems, after the Chinese AI startup did not react to a data watchdog demand about how it handles user details.

DeepSeek introduced its R1 chatbot last month, claiming it matches the capacity of expert system pacesetters in the United States for a portion of the financial investment, overthrowing the worldwide industry.

South Korea, together with nations such as France and Italy, have actually asked questions about DeepSeek’s data practices, submitting a composed ask for details about how the company deals with user details.

But after DeepSeek failed to react to an enquiry from South Korea’s data watchdog, a slew of ministries validated Thursday they were taking actions to limit access to avoid of delicate details through generative AI services.

"Blocking measures for DeepSeek have actually been executed specifically for military work-related PCs with Internet,” a defence ministry official told AFP.

The ministry, which oversees active-duty soldiers deployed against the nuclear-armed North, has likewise “repeated the security precautions concerning the use of generative AI for each system and soldier, taking into consideration security and technical issues”, it included.

South Korea’s authorities informed AFP they had actually likewise blocked access to DeepSeek, while the trade ministry said that gain access to had been temporarily restricted on all its PCs.

The trade, financing, marriage and foreign ministries also all said they had obstructed the app or had actually taken undefined measures.

- Bans ‘not extreme’ -

Last week, Italy introduced an investigation into DeepSeek’s R1 design and blocked it from processing Italian users’ data.

Australia has likewise prohibited DeepSeek from all government devices on the suggestions of security companies.

Kim Jong-hwa, a professor at Cheju Halla University’s artificial intelligence department, told AFP that amidst growing competition between the United States and China he suspected “political factors” might be affecting the reaction to DeepSeek-- however said bans were still justified.

"From a technical perspective, AI designs like ChatGPT likewise face various security-related problems that have not yet been completely attended to,” he said.

"Given that China operates under a communist routine, I question whether they consider security issues as much as OpenAI does when developing innovative technologies,” he said.

"We can not presently evaluate how much attention has been paid to security concerns by DeepSeek when establishing its chatbot. Therefore, I think that taking proactive measures is not too extreme.“

Beijing on Thursday hit back against the ban, firmly insisting the Chinese government “will never require business or individuals to unlawfully gather or store data”.

"China has constantly opposed the generalisation of national security and the politicisation of financial, trade and technological problems,” foreign ministry representative Guo Jiakun said.

Beijing would also “securely secure the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises,” Guo vowed.

- ‘Complex competition’ -

DeepSeek states it uses less-advanced H800 chips-- allowed for ratemywifey.com sale to China till 2023 under US export controls-- to power its big knowing model.

South Korean chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are key suppliers of sophisticated chips used in AI servers.

The federal government revealed on Wednesday an additional 34 trillion won ($23.5 billion) investment in semiconductors and state-of-the-art markets, with the country’s acting president urging Korean tech companies to remain flexible.

"Recently, a Chinese company unveiled the AI model DeepSeek R1, which offers high efficiency at a low expense, making a fresh impact in the market,” acting President Choi Sang-mok said Wednesday.

"The global AI competitors may evolve from a simple infrastructure scale-up rivalry to a more complicated competition that consists of software application abilities and other factors.“