The Italian regulator has blocked a Chinese application with built-in artificial intelligence DeepSeek.
This was reported by the local regulator Garante.
The emergency order came into effect immediately to protect the personal data of Italians.
The decision comes two days after Italy sent a request about how DeepSeek uses users’ personal data. The local regulator asked what data is collected, why, and whether it is stored in China. However, the Chinese company’s response was deemed “completely inadequate”. They said they do not operate in Italy and that European law does not apply to them.
The DeepSeek app has been missing from digital stores in Italy since January 29. The web version, however, remained available — and it is still available today.
The Italian newspaper la Repubblica writes that the main page of DeepSeek states that usersʼ personal data is stored on servers in China, the content of chats with the bot can be used to train its algorithms, and the service should not be used by children under 14. However, the Italian regulator requested additional details, which it did not receive.
What is DeepSeek?
On January 27, DeepSeek overtook ChatGPT to become the most popular free app on the App Store. On the same day, the Chinese chatbot was subjected to a large-scale cyberattack.
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, a 40-year-old graduate of the School of Information and Electronic Engineering. He set up a store for Nvidia A100 chips, which are now banned from being exported to China. Media reports suggest that this may have prompted him to launch DeepSeek, combining those chips with cheaper, lower-end ones that are still available for import.
DeepSeek is based on the open-source DeepSeek-V3 model. Some experts say that the model was developed for less than $6 million — competitors spend much more. However, other experts dispute this information.
- OpenAI, the creator of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, said on January 29 that Chinese companies are “constantly” trying to use American competitors to improve their AI models.
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