South Korea’s defense ministry and the police on Thursday said they were blocking access to DeepSeek on work computers after the Chinese Artificial Intelligence, AI, startup did not respond to a data watchdog request about how it manages user information.

NaijaCrawl reports that DeepSeek launched its R1 chatbot in January.

The AI claimed it matches the capacity of AI pacesetters in the United States at a fraction of the investment, upending the global industry.

South Korea, along with countries like France and Italy, have asked questions about DeepSeek’s data practices.

They submitted a written request for information about how the company handles user information.

But after DeepSeek failed to respond to an inquiry from South Korea’s data watchdog, the country’s defense ministry confirmed Thursday they were taking steps to limit access to prevent potential leaks of sensitive information through generative AI services.

“Access to DeepSeek from military work computers has been blocked,” a defense ministry spokesperson told This Week in Asia.

“The ministry has reinforced security precautions regarding the use of generative AI and implemented necessary preemptive measures for military personnel’s work devices.”

South Korea’s police said they had blocked access to DeepSeek, while the trade ministry said that access had been temporarily restricted on all its PCs.

Meanwhile, Australia has also banned DeepSeek from all government devices on the advice of security agencies.