U.S. officials allege that AI firm DeepSeek aids China's military operations and uses Southeast Asian shell companies to access restricted Nvidia H100 chips. A senior State Department official stated, “DeepSeek has willingly provided and will likely continue to provide support” to Beijing’s intelligence efforts. Despite claims that it spent just $5.58 million on AI model training, skepticism remains about the startup's actual costs, raising concerns over privacy and compliance with U.S. export controls.