The US has held off adding DeepSeek (深度求索), ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc (CXMT, 長鑫存儲) and more than 100 other companies flagged as national security risks to a trade blacklist, two people familiar with the matter said, as US President Donald Trump’s administration tries to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing.DeepSeek, whose low-cost artificial intelligence (AI) model sent shockwaves through the technology world in January last year, has supported China’s military and intelligence operations, a senior US Department of State official said last year, adding that the start-up tried to use Southeast Asian shell companies to illegally access advanced US chips. CXMT, China’s top maker of memory chips, was designated as a Chinese military company by the US Department of Defense under former US president Joe Biden’s administration. The US Department of Commerce considered placing it on its Entity List more than a year ago, Reuters reported.
The Deepseek logo and US and Chinese flags are pictured on Jan. 29, last year.
DeepSeek, CXMT and other companies were approved by an interagency committee last year for addition to the Entity List. US companies cannot ship goods, software and technology to companies on the list without a license, which is likely to be denied.The US has not posted any additions to its Entity List since October last year, the longest stretch between new postings in more than a decade, said Philip Luck, who studies global supply chains at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
