US Delays Blacklisting DeepSeek and Over 100 Chinese Firms

Reuters reports the U.S. has held off on adding DeepSeek, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and more than 100 other companies flagged as national security risks to the Commerce Department's Entity List, citing two people familiar with the matter. Reuters says an interagency committee approved the proposed additions last year but the Commerce Department has not published the entries. Reuters also reports the Entity List has not been updated since October, the longest stretch in more than a decade.

Per Reuters, DeepSeek's low-cost AI model disrupted the industry in January 2025 and U.S. officials have accused the firm of supporting China's military and intelligence operations and attempting to use Southeast Asian shell companies to obtain advanced U.S. chips. Reuters reports Anthropic said it identified a campaign by DeepSeek and two other Chinese AI labs to extract capabilities from the Claude model. Reuters notes CXMT was previously designated a Chinese military company by the U.S. Defense Department under the Biden administration.

Industry observers note that pauses in export-control listings change the operational calculus for both U.S. suppliers and flagged foreign firms. Companies awaiting placement on the Entity List remain able, in practice, to seek U.S. components and software until formal listing and licensing restrictions apply. Prior listings show that formal Entity List inclusion typically tightens controls on specialized chips, development tools, and certain cloud services, increasing friction for advanced AI model training and inference workloads.

The near-simultaneous reporting that an interagency panel approved many additions but the Commerce Department deferred publishing them reflects a policy trade-off between export-control enforcement and short-term diplomatic management. Observers tracking supply chains note that delayed listings can prolong access to U.S. inputs for firms that have been publicly accused of military ties or illicit procurement, raising risk vectors for technology transfer and dual-use hardware.

For AI teams, security and procurement leads, and hardware planners, the episode underscores the operational uncertainty created by changing export controls. Organizations that source specialized memory, accelerators, or licensing-sensitive software should monitor Entity List activity closely because a formal listing typically triggers immediate licensing requirements and procurement rework. For model-security teams, the Reuters-reported allegations of illicit model-extraction attempts against Claude highlight ongoing risks around API abuse and adversarial exfiltration of model capabilities.

• •Whether the Commerce Department updates the Entity List and which names are published, per Reuters reporting on the approved but unpublished entries.
• •Public statements or filings from the Bureau of Industry and Security or Commerce that confirm timing and scope of any listings, as Reuters noted BIS oversees the list.
• •Any follow-on disclosures from Anthropic, other affected AI labs, or U.S. agencies documenting the mechanics of the alleged model-extraction campaigns against Claude, per Reuters.