DHS Orders Exclusion of DeepSeek Products from Federal Procurement and Removal from Systems
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that it requires the exclusion of information technology products and services developed by the Chinese artificial intelligence company Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Technology Research Co., Ltd. (DeepSeek) and its affiliated entities from federal civilian procurement, and their removal from relevant agency IT systems.
The order also mandates the removal of all products from DeepSeek and its affiliates, as well as third-party products and services implemented using DeepSeek.
This order is made under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018 and related implementation guidelines, following a review of recommendations and supporting evidence from the Federal Acquisition Security Council.
The order covers procurement and IT systems of federal civilian agencies, excluding national security and compartmented information systems, with agencies allowed to apply for exceptions in writing within 60 days.
The announcement is set to be published in the Federal Register, with the order itself signed by the Secretary of Homeland Security, dated back to July.
Federal agencies are halting the procurement of DeepSeek-related products and will remove existing deployments from their systems, redirecting funding and procurement paths to other vendors; benefiting are alternative product providers that meet supply chain security requirements, while those under pressure are third-party service providers relying on DeepSeek models and potential government procurement parties.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an exclusion and removal order based on the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018, targeting DeepSeek and its affiliated entities, requiring civilian agencies to stop procurement and clear related products and third-party services based on them.
This move expands the control points of the supply chain from a simple product list to the model implementation level, requiring agencies to review existing IT deployments and complete removals or apply for exceptions within the stipulated time, motivated by the aim to block potential sensitive data flows to Chinese servers.
Similar paths can be seen in previous federal procurement restrictions on specific Chinese technology suppliers, as well as prior restrictions on DeepSeek by various states and individual agencies (such as the Department of Commerce and the Navy); currently, it is in the stage of elevating case-specific restrictions to unified supply chain rules across agencies.
This represents a regulatory change: through a legally authorized exclusion and removal mechanism, the risk control of specific AI models is shifted from agency discretion to mandatory supply chain severance, prioritizing data sovereignty and supply chain security, and mandating the replacement or removal of dependency paths, thereby altering the acceptance standards for open-source and third-party models in federal IT procurement.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Procurement exclusion decision entry, system removal decision stock.
Model implementation also counts as a product, and third-party paths are similarly severed.
The Supply Chain Security Act turns risks into mandatory replacements.