UPDATE 1-OpenAI says China's DeepSeek trained its AI by distilling US models, memo shows

OpenAI has ​warned U.S. lawmakers that Chinese artificial ​intelligence startup DeepSeek ‌targeted the ChatGPT ​maker and the nation's AI labs to "distill" information to train its own models, a memo ‌seen by Reuters showed.

The distillation technique involves having an older, more established and powerful AI model evaluate the quality of the answers coming out of ‌a newer model, effectively transferring the older model's learnings. In a memo ‌to the U.S. House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party, OpenAI said: "We have observed accounts associated with DeepSeek employees developing methods to ⁠circumvent ​OpenAI's access restrictions and ⁠access models through obfuscated third-party routers and other ways that mask their source."

"We also ⁠know that DeepSeek employees developed code to access U.S. AI models and obtain ​outputs for distillation in programmatic ways," the memo added. DeepSeek and its ⁠parent company High-Flyer did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

DeepSeek shook markets ⁠early ​last year with a set of AI models that rivaled some of the best offerings from the U.S. but were developed with ⁠far less computing power, fuelling concerns in Washington that China could catch up ⁠in the ⁠AI race despite U.S. restrictions on the sale of high-powered computing chips to China.