Instead of banning foreign apps like TikTok, America should focus on tech innovation at home

DeepSeek, a less expensive, more efficient Chinese AI alternative to ChatGPT was unveiled recently, briefly wiping out more than a trillion in value from the US stock market. The reason behind the panic? DeepSeek was allegedly created with far less computing power than America’s leading AI, punching a hole in the American tech industry’s highly expensive approach.

What’s concerning is that DeepSeek doesn’t hide that it collects large swaths of data on its users. It openly collects data, including user keystrokes and personal information and “secures” it in data centers in China, making it feasibly at the behest of the Chinese government.

President Donald Trump called DeepSeek a “wake up call that [the US] needs to be laser focused on competing to win.” However DeepSeek emerged while American politicians misguidedly focused their ire on another tech company, ByteDance.

On January 19, in accordance with the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a ban on TikTok and other ByteDance applications went into effect in the United States. TikTok, and other ByteDance applications including Capcut, went dark for several hours until President Donald Trump offered assurances to the company that he would sign an executive order to temporarily halt the ban. While TikTok can be used in the United States, it’s unclear for how long it will remain available unless ByteDance divests from China.