Kansas becomes the first state to pass legislation prohibiting the use of DeepSeek at state agencies.
Tensions between Beijing and Washington are playing out at the U.S. state level as lawmakers attempt to block the use of Chinese technology while protecting university research.
States have been steadily passing legislation aimed at banning Chinese technology and deals between Chinese companies and universities in an attempt to defend state and national interests.
During the spring legislative sessions, at least one state introduced legislation to prohibit state and agency use of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI), while six others introduced bills to prohibit Chinese drones or equipment that could potentially be used for espionage or threaten national security.
Likewise, nine states introduced legislation aimed at protecting research at state universities by restricting or banning Chinese funding, influence, and recruitment on campuses.
Technology Bans
One notable legislative success targeting Chinese technology involved TikTok, which became the subject of local, state, and national legislation due to its Chinese company ownership.
Lawmakers were concerned about national security and privacy issues surrounding TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which some officials have warned has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Experts say the Chinese regime could access U.S. user data or manipulate the platform.
Congress passed a bill in 2024 to ban the video app or force its sale, which President Joe Biden signed into law. President Donald Trump, after taking office in January, extended the sale deadline in hopes of keeping the app active because he believes the platform helped him reach young voters.
“I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” he said during a December 2024 news conference. “TikTok had an impact.”
Also in January, Chinese technology took the spotlight again, this time with DeepSeek, an AI start-up based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang.
The company claimed its latest AI model could perform just as well as more expensive AI models, costing about $6 million in older, less-powerful chips.
DeepSeek’s AI model sparked an industry-wide conversation on the future of AI hardware and the California-based Nvidia’s long-standing dominance, triggering investor panic and concerns over Nvidia’s competitiveness.
On April 16, the House Select Committee on the CCP released a report titled “DeepSeek Unmasked: Exposing the CCP’s Latest Tool for Spying, Stealing, and Subverting U.S. Export Control Restrictions.”
The committee stated that the Chinese AI model “appears to have been built using stolen U.S. technology on the back of U.S. semiconductor chips that are prohibited from sale to China.”
Meanwhile, by mid-April, DeepSeek was banned from government use in at least 15 states, mainly through executive action, with both red and blue states citing spying and privacy concerns.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Jan. 31 that the state would not allow the use of AI and social media apps affiliated with China or the CCP on government-issued devices.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul quickly followed, banning DeepSeek from government devices and networks on Feb. 10 over foreign surveillance and censorship worries, such as harvesting user data and the possibility that it could steal state technology secrets.
As of April, Kansas became the only state to successfully pass legislation banning DeepSeek. House Bill 2313 prohibits the use of AI applications made or controlled by China or countries “of concern,” specifically naming DeepSeek.
The bill was signed into law by Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on April 8.
The bill’s provisions require state agencies to block access to these AI platforms on their devices and networks, with exceptions made only for law enforcement activities or cybersecurity investigations.
The bill targets AI models controlled by countries such as China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.
The new law underscored the growing trend among states to take preemptive action against technologies perceived as threats.
State Rep. Nick Hoheisel, a Republican, presented the bill this spring, saying cybersecurity experts found code within DeepSeek’s login process that connects it to China Mobile, a state-owned telecommunications company, raising national security concerns.
DeepSeek’s policy confirms that user data is stored on servers in China, he said. That makes the data subject to the country’s strict data laws, which require companies to grant the regime access upon request.
DeepSeek collects chat, search history, keystroke patterns, IP addresses, and other activity far beyond the typical AI functionality, Hoheisel said.
He said that the company’s terms of service state that its operations are governed by Chinese law, which is “exposing Kansas users to foreign jurisdiction,” he noted.
“Given China’s history of cyber surveillance and data exploitation, allowing DeepSeek on Kansas networks poses an unacceptable risk,” he added.
The initial bill passed 95–27, with bipartisan support.
Mike Howell, executive director of the government watchdog Oversight Project, applauds states for stepping in.
He told The Epoch Times that the federal government spends a lot of money on military defense but has generally failed to address what some consider the Chinese regime’s “unrestricted warfare” against the United States.
Howell said the federal government has all but abandoned the states in the fight against the CCP, which includes such tactics as propaganda and cyber attacks.
Though states don’t have the same resources, they are now at the forefront of protecting American interests because they can move quicker than Congress, which seems hopelessly deadlocked when it comes to passing laws, he added.
“States can more strategically, quickly, and nimbly undercut things like land purchases or the societal infiltration that we see so much of, or the investments,” Howell said.
University Research
China has been using American universities to undermine national security through the theft of technology and trade secrets, according to a 2019 FBI report.
The report estimated the annual cost of theft of trade secrets, pirated software, and counterfeit goods to the U.S. economy between $225 billion and $600 billion. Mainly, China doesn’t recognize the same rules of academic integrity that U.S. institutions of higher education observe.
“Foreign adversaries exploit America’s deeply held and vital culture of collaboration and openness on university campuses, with the Chinese government posing a particular threat to U.S. academia for a variety of reasons,” the report reads.
Recently, those concerns have been underscored by reports out of California.
In May, The Stanford Review published an investigative report on the Chinese regime conducting espionage at the prestigious university, targeting its AI and robotic research.
The report, based mainly on anonymous sources, said a CCP agent using the alias of Charles Chen impersonated a Stanford student and then approached several students at the university in an attempt to gather intelligence.
Stanford experts on Chinese intelligence-gathering efforts told the publication that the transfer of information at Stanford included such things as research projects, methodologies, software, and lab workflows.
The evidence led the publication to declare that “the CCP is orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford“ and that ”there are Chinese spies” at the university.
The Department of Education announced recently that the University of California, Berkeley, was under investigation over allegations that the elite school didn’t report hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from a Chinese entity and that it shared information about an unspecified “important technology.”
A government release in April noted that the activities being questioned date back to 2023, when the university revealed a “fundamental misunderstanding” of its reporting obligations.
In June 2023, Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Mike Collins (R-Ga.) sent out a press release stating that UC Berkeley had received $240 million in undisclosed funds from China.
“In exchange for monetary contributions, UC Berkeley officials offered exclusive tours of cutting-edge semiconductor research facilities to Chinese delegations,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter, dated May 31, 2023, to the director of the National Science Foundation.
“These delegations included Chinese researchers as well as multiple senior Chinese government officials,” the letter reads.
Those incidents caused renewed focus at the state level on the CCP’s influence at state universities.
States such as Texas, West Virginia, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Georgia introduced legislation this spring to ban or regulate Chinese money flowing into universities.
Florida was at the forefront of state efforts, passing Senate Bill 846 in 2023, but it faces legal challenges from activist groups.
The law limits public colleges and universities in Florida from entering into agreements or accepting grants with institutions affiliated with “countries of concern,” namely China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela. Additionally, it restricts them from hiring employees from those countries who lack a green card or U.S. citizenship.
Arnie Bellini, a Florida tech entrepreneur and founder of the software company ConnectWise, recalls refusing to sell a global software product inside China.
“We knew they would steal our technology,” he told The Epoch Times.
He recently donated a whopping $40 million to create a college for AI, cybersecurity, and computing at the University of South Florida.
Funding the college will help the United States win the AI race against China and secure its technological future by securing its “digital borders,” he said.
Whoever wins the AI competition will become the predominant economic force far into the future, he said.
Now that China is targeting AI, states need to protect research and development at their universities, he added.
“I think we should revoke every Chinese student’s visa,” he said.
That’s because it’s impossible to tell which ones are working as agents for the CCP, he said.
China has become the second-largest economy in the world by “drafting” off the United States, Bellini said, using auto racing terminology to describe how they have closed the technology gap.
The United States has done little to push back on the Chinese regime’s theft, which has emboldened it further, he said.
“This is the right thing for the states to do,” Bellini said. “Someone should be creating a blueprint for what states need to do to protect themselves against China.”