Beijing is keen to foster the adoption of models developed by China's AI champion DeepSeek. (Nikkei montage/Source photo by Reuters)

China races to govern the country with DeepSeek -- but at what risk?

Worries over AI 'hallucinations' and data security take a back seat to FOMO

CISSY ZHOU and YIFAN YU

March 5, 2025 06:00 JST

HONG KONG/PALO ALTO, California -- Since startup DeepSeek became the pride of China by singlehandedly crashing Nvidia's stock price with its low-cost approach to artificial intelligence, local governments have been racing to use the model for everything from drafting documents and analyzing data to answering public queries and drawing up policies.