One Australian business has actually discouraged personnel from using the technology, others are rushing for guidance on its cybersecurity ramifications - while federal government ministers are prompting caution.

But others have actually welcomed DeepSeek’s arrival, calling for Australia to follow China’s lead in establishing effective yet less energy-intensive AI technology.

In the days because the Chinese company launched its R1 expert system design and publicly launched its chatbot and app, it has upended the AI market.

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Several global industry leaders saw their market values drop after the launch, as DeepSeek showed AI could be established utilizing a portion of the expense and processing required to train models such as ChatGPT or Meta’s Llama.

Its arrival might indicate a new industry shift, however for government and business, the impact is unclear. Whereas ChatGPT’s 2022 arrival caught federal governments and businesses by surprise as staff started to experiment with the new AI innovation, at least for the arrival of Deepseek, some had a playbook.

Business as usual

A representative for Telstra stated the business had “an extensive procedure to examine all AI tools, capabilities, and use cases in our business”, including a list of authorized generative AI tools, and standards on how to use them.

For now at Telstra, DeepSeek is not authorized and its use is not motivated (although it’s not formally blocked).

“Our preferred partner is MS Copilot, and we’re rolling out 21,000 Copilot for Microsoft 365 licences to our employees.”

Other business sought immediate guidance on whether DeepSeek ought to be adopted.

Major Australian cybersecurity firm CyberCX’s of cyber intelligence, Katherine Mansted, said customers had actually already approached the business for suggestions on whether the technology was safe.

“That’s not a surprise, due to the fact that it seems the whole world has actually remained in a bit of a DeepSeek frenzy - both the economically and market likely and those with the security lens,” Mansted said.

DeepSeek and government

CyberCX this week took the unusual action of quickly releasing guidance advising organisations, including government departments and systemcheck-wiki.de those keeping sensitive information, highly consider restricting access to DeepSeek on work devices.

“We understand that there is no proactive policy here from federal government … We’ve been down this road before,” Mansted stated. “We’ve had disputes about TikTok, about Chinese surveillance cams, about Huawei in the telco network, and we constantly act after the fact, not before the fact … Here, especially since the dangers are around compromise of sensitive info, in terms of any information that you take into this AI assistant: it’s going straight to China.

“We thought we required to act faster this time.”

Under federal AI policy implemented in September 2024, agencies have up until the end of February 2025 to publish openness files about their use of AI.

But understanding who makes decisions on the specific use of DeepSeek in the federal government has proved challenging. The chief law officer’s department, which made the decision to prohibit TikTok use on federal government devices, referred inquiries to the Digital Transformation Agency, which in turn referred enquires to the Department of Home Affairs.

Home Affairs was asked on Thursday for its official policy and did not offer an action by the time of publication.

Familiar disputes …

A few of the response in Australia to DeepSeek is by now familiar. There have actually been calls to ban the innovation, amidst issue over how the Chinese government might access user data - an echo of the days Huawei was prohibited from the NBN and 5G rollouts in Australia, and more just recently, of the debate over banning TikTok.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a strong critic of the China federal government, stated today that Australia “can not continue the existing technique of reacting to each new tech advancement”. It required a tech technique covering AI that consisted of investing in sovereign AI abilities.

The industry minister, Ed Husic, said on Tuesday it was too early to decide on whether DeepSeek was a security risk.

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“If there is anything that presents a threat in the national interest, we will always keep an open mind and links.gtanet.com.br view what happens. I believe it’s too early to leap to conclusions on that,” he stated. “But, once again, if we need to act, then responsible governments do.”

He worried that Australia is “in the lasts” of preparing its action and would develop its own regulatory settings.

“The US is flagging their technique. The EU has theirs. Canada also will have a different approach. And our local partners too are taking a look at this,” he said.