Microsoft and OpenAI are examining whether DeepSeek improperly accessed OpenAI’s data, potentially violating terms of service and raising concerns about intellectual property theft.
Microsoft’s security team detected unusual activity last fall, observing individuals suspected of being linked to DeepSeek extracting significant amounts of data through OpenAI’s API. This API allows licensed developers to integrate OpenAI’s AI models into their own applications. The activity could potentially violate OpenAI’s terms of service or indicate an effort to circumvent data access restrictions.
The investigation coincides with DeepSeek’s rise in the AI industry, following the release of its open-source model, R1, which the company claims rivals or outperforms leading U.S. AI products from OpenAI, Google, and Meta. DeepSeek asserts that R1 competes with or surpasses U.S. products in areas such as mathematics and general knowledge while being much cheaper to develop. This perceived threat to U.S. companies led to a sharp decline in AI-related tech stocks, erasing almost $1 trillion in market value.
In an interview with Fox News, President Trump’s “AI czar” David Sacks stated, “There’s substantial evidence that DeepSeek distilled knowledge out of OpenAI models to develop their own technology,” referring to the practice where AI models use the outputs of other systems for training.
OpenAI is working with U.S. government agencies to protect their technology. Microsoft and DeepSeek have not commented on the investigation.
The situation highlights the challenges in protecting intellectual property in the rapidly evolving AI industry, especially concerning potential unauthorized use of proprietary technologies by emerging competitors.
