Microsoft, OpenAI probe possible illicit data links to start-up DeepSeek

Bengaluru — Microsoft and OpenAI are probing if data output from the ChatGPT maker’s technology was obtained in an unauthorised manner by a group linked to Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek, Bloomberg News reports.

Microsoft’s security researchers observed that in autumn individuals they believed to be connected to DeepSeek were exfiltrating a large amount of data using the OpenAI’s application programming interface (API), the report said.

OpenAI’s API is the main way that software developers and business customers buy OpenAI’s services.

Microsoft, the largest investor for OpenAI, notified the company of suspicious activity, according to the Bloomberg report on Tuesday.

Low-cost Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek, an alternative to US rivals, sparked a tech stock sell-off on Monday as its free AI assistant overtook OpenAI’s ChatGPT on Apple’s App Store in the US.

David Sacks, the White House’s AI and crypto tsar, told Fox News in an interview earlier that it was “possible” that DeepSeek stole intellectual property from the US.

“There’s substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models,” Sacks said.

Asked for comment on the Bloomberg report, an OpenAI spokesperson echoed Sacks in a statement that noted China-based companies and others were constantly attempting to replicate the models of leading US AI companies, without specifically naming DeepSeek or any other company.

“We engage in countermeasures to protect our IP, including a careful process for which frontier capabilities to include in released models, and believe as we go forward that it is critically important that we are working closely with the US government to best protect the most capable models from efforts by adversaries and competitors to take US technology.”

Microsoft declined to comment, while DeepSeek could not be immediately reached for a comment.

Reuters