Washington DC - US lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill to ban Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) program DeepSeek from use on all government devices.

New Jersey Democrat Josh Gottheimer introduced the bill alongside Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican, citing an "alarming threat to US national security" and warning of "direct ties" between DeepSeek and the Chinese government.

The proposal comes after a Wednesday report by a US cybersecurity firm found that the AI model contains hidden code capable of transmitting user data to China Mobile, a state-owned telecoms firm.

In a statement, Gottheimer claimed Beijing "has made it abundantly clear that it will exploit any tool at its disposal to undermine our national security, spew harmful disinformation, and collect data on Americans."

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"We have deeply disturbing evidence that they are using DeepSeek to steal the sensitive data of U.S. citizens," Gottheimer said. "This is a five alarm national security fire."

"We must get to the bottom of DeepSeek’s malign activities. We simply can’t risk the CCP infiltrating the devices of our government officials and jeopardizing our national security."

Australian authorities as well as South Korean ministries and police have already stepped in to ban the use of DeepSeek on government devices due to similar national security fears.

Chinese startup DeepSeek took the world by storm in January as a low-cost, high-quality chatbot, triggering fears that Beijing is beating Washington in areas of technological innovation.