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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Mark Sweney and Dan Milmo

OpenAI ‘reviewing’ allegations that its AI models were used to make DeepSeek

graphic showing the ChatGPT and OpenAI logos displayed on smartphone screens held by hands in black shadow against a blurred green and purple-tinged background
OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, said it knew China-based firms, and others, ‘are constantly trying to distil the models of leading US AI companies’. Photograph: GK Images/Alamy

OpenAI has warned that Chinese startups are “constantly” using its technology to develop competing products and said it is “reviewing” allegations that DeepSeek used the ChatGPT maker’s AI models to create a rival chatbot.

OpenAI and its partner Microsoft – which has invested $13bn in the San Francisco-based AI developer – have been investigating whether proprietary technology had been obtained in an unauthorised manner through a technique known as “distillation”.

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