The National Post reports in its Friday, Feb. 7, edition that Ottawa has banned the use of Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek's chatbot on government devices due to serious privacy concerns. The Post's Christopher Nardi writes that Dominic Rochon, the government's chief information officer, announced that the app, which recently became one of the world's most downloaded, is restricted on devices and networks managed by Shared Services Canada (SSC). He urged other departments to block the app as well. The ban does not apply to personal devices of Canadians. DeepSeek gained attention last month for launching an AI model that rivals existing products like Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT. Its emergence proceeded to disrupt the stock market, causing significant drops in the value of AI-related companies like Nvidia. In a short period, the Chinese company's success has reignited the AI race between China and the United States, challenging U.S. leadership in the sector. Western governments are fretting over how the company handles users' personal information in light of sweeping Chinese national security laws that allow its government to compel companies in China to hand over data.