Did DeepSeek Steal OpenAI Data For Its Models? Microsoft is Investigating

Microsoft and OpenAI are investigating whether data output from OpenAI’s technology was obtained in an unauthorized manner by a group linked to Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek, Bloomberg reported.

Microsoft’s security researchers in the fall observed individuals they believe may be linked to DeepSeek exfiltrating a large amount of data using the OpenAI application programming interface, or API.

David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence czar, said Tuesday there’s “substantial evidence” that DeepSeek leaned on the output of OpenAI’s models to help develop its own technology. In an interview with Fox News, Sacks described a technique called distillation whereby one AI model uses the outputs of another for training purposes to develop similar capabilities.

“There’s substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled knowledge out of OpenAI models and I don’t think OpenAI is very happy about this,” Sacks said.

In a statement responding to Sacks’ comments, OpenAI didn’t directly address his comments about DeepSeek. “We know PRC based companies — and others — are constantly trying to distill the models of leading US AI companies,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in the statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “As the leading builder of AI, we engage in countermeasures to protect our IP, including a careful process for which frontier capabilities to include in released models, and believe as we go forward that it is critically important that we are working closely with the US government to best protect the most capable models from efforts by adversaries and competitors to take US technology.”

DeepSeek earlier this month released a new open-source artificial intelligence model called R1 that can mimic the way humans reason, upending a market dominated by OpenAI and US rivals such as Google and Meta Platforms Inc.

The Chinese upstart said R1 rivaled or outperformed leading US developers’ products on a range of industry benchmarks, including for mathematical tasks and general knowledge — and was built for a fraction of the cost.

The potential threat to the US firms’ edge in the industry sent technology stocks tied to AI, including Microsoft, Nvidia Corp., Oracle Corp. and Google parent Alphabet Inc., tumbling on Monday, erasing a total of almost $1 trillion in market value.

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