The Trump administration might ban DeepSeek in the US

Months after DeepSeek sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and Wall Street, the White House might be getting ready to pull the plug on its U.S. presence.

Targeting chips and American users

The Trump administration is considering sweeping new restrictions on Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, according to a report from The New York Times. The proposed measures could block the company from buying Nvidia AI chips and potentially ban Americans from accessing its AI services altogether.

The news follows a move from the White House just a day earlier, which tightened existing Biden-era export controls on Nvidia chip sales to China.

DeepSeek has seen its popularity skyrocket among U.S. developers in recent months, with aggressive pricing that forced Silicon Valley giants to slash costs on their frontier models. However, questions around intellectual property continue to swirl, including allegations from OpenAI that DeepSeek improperly distilled its models in violation of its terms of service.

Why it matters

This marks a potential shift in how the U.S. approaches Chinese AI competition. Washington appears ready to move beyond hardware blockades into outright software and service bans.

For American developers who leaned into DeepSeek for cheap, capable frontier intelligence, losing access would mean returning to pricier Silicon Valley alternatives. While a ban might offer domestic AI labs temporary relief from ruthless price competition, enforcing an outright user ban on a widely distributed model looks messy and could easily push developers toward third-party workarounds.