Good morning. Welcome to the first Research and Technology Subcommittee hearing of the 119th Congress titled "DeepSeek: A Deep Dive." I look forward to engaging with our distinguished panel of witnesses on this critically important topic.
It is clear that artificial intelligence will have a profound transformative impact on our country. My experience leading the Bipartisan House AI Task Force has strengthened my belief that maintaining American leadership in AI development and deployment is not only an economic imperative but also a national security requirement that affects every sector of our economy and society.
As we examine the implications of DeepSeek's recent AI models, our nation is at a critical juncture in the global artificial intelligence landscape. The introduction of DeepSeek represents a concerning milestone: it is the first non-American reasoning AI model. This capability, pioneered by American companies, is now being replicated by a company directly influenced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This development should raise concerns for all of us.
We must consider what is at risk: Americans and people worldwide are increasingly sharing their private and personal data with AI systems.
The deployment of DeepSeek provides the CCP with a backdoor to this sensitive information. This risk will only grow as we enter the era of agentic AI, where AI systems will actively book our travel, manage our finances, analyze our health records, and handle other sensitive personal affairs on our behalf. We cannot allow DeepSeek and other CCP-controlled entities to access this information.
However, there is a silver lining in this situation. DeepSeek reportedly distilled their models from OpenAI's systems, demonstrating that Chinese AI development remains reliant on our innovations.
Furthermore, despite the claim that DeepSeek-R1 achieves similar results to American models at a lower cost, Google recently announced its open-weight Gemma 3 model, which reportedly achieves 98% of DeepSeek-R1's performance for just 3% of the cost. American ingenuity continues to lead the way, but we cannot take our continued leadership for granted.
Open-weight models underpin much of the AI and technology infrastructure worldwide, including here in the United States. If we allow China to surpass us in open-weight models, we risk ceding leadership in global AI infrastructure to the CCP.
It is crucial that we understand the capabilities of these models, the CCP goals they could propagate, and their potential vulnerabilities, in order to encourage the adoption of American models over those developed in China.
This is precisely why the federal government and American industry must collaborate to ensure continued American leadership in the development of AI standards. If the United States doesn't set these standards, China will.
China's approach to AI development has also raised serious ethical and security concerns, especially relating to the prevention of harmful applications of AI.
For example, according to an evaluation by Anthropic, DeepSeek's model was found to be the least effective at blocking information about bioweapons among all the models they tested. While Chinese AI has so-called "safeguards" against providing information about Tiananmen Square and the Uyghurs, it lacks safeguards against actual malicious use of AI.
We must ensure that Chinese AI, which operates under these flawed standards, does not come to dominate the global market. The United States must take the lead in developing the most advanced AI systems while also fostering a light-touch governance model that safeguards against malicious use while simultaneously encouraging innovation.
We cannot afford to stifle our innovators with burdensome regulations when competitors like China are racing ahead with fewer constraints.
Promoting innovation in AI development is key to maintaining American leadership in this field. To support this, I’ve reintroduced the CREATE AI Act, which establishes the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource. This will provide researchers and developers access to the computational and data resources they need to create competitive American AI systems that embody our values rather than those of the CCP.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today. I look forward to your testimony and a productive discussion on this critically important topic.
Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.