The economic hardware/software debate about China just got more complicated. Before DeepSeek flipped the script on the artificial intelligence game, many economists worried China had way too much of the former and not enough of the latter.

What this means is that if you ask it some straightforward questions like “what happened on June 4, 1989 at Tiananmen Square?”, you’ll see DeepSeek start to answer it, but promptly delete everything with the following swift response: “Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else.”

The hottest new AI model is Chinese made—and it’s avoiding questions about Tiananmen Square, Taiwan and Xi Jinping.

DeepSeek's chatbot's answer echoed China's official statements, saying the relationship between the world's two largest economies is one of the most important bilateral relationships globally. It said China is committed to developing ties with the U.S. based on mutual respect and win-win cooperation.

Deepseek collects similar data to American-based AI models, but Chinese laws could make that data more accessible to the government.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has surged past OpenAIs ChatGPT in Apples App Store downloads, sparking national pride and raising concerns for U.S. tech giants. The company recently launched a free AI assistant that

In some ways, DeepSeek was far less censored than most Chinese platforms, offering answers with keywords that would often be quickly scrubbed on domestic social media. Other times, the program eventually censored itself.

The Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek has rattled the tech industry with the release of free, cheaply made AI models that compete with the best US products such as ChatGPT.