South Korea’s Ministry of Industry has temporarily blocked its officials from using Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek due to security concerns.
On Tuesday, the Korean government issued a notice urging ministries and agencies to be cautious in using AI services including DeepSeek and ChatGPT while at work.
The state-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power said it had blocked the use of AI services including DeepSeek starting in February.
The Ministry of Defense has also blocked access to DeepSeek on its computers for military use.
In addition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has restricted access to DeepSeek on computers connecting to external networks and is currently unable to confirm specific security measures.
However, the rumors have not received any response from DeepSeek’s management.
The ban makes South Korea the latest government to issue a warning by placing restrictions on DeepSeek.
More recently, Australia and Taiwan banned DeepSeek this week from all government devices due to concerns that the Chinese artificial intelligence startup poses a security risk.
Several other governments in Europe, the US and India are also studying the implications of using DeepSeek.
