OpenAI says it has found evidence that Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek used the US company’s proprietary models to train its own open-source competitor, as concerns grow over a potential breach of intellectual property.

The companies claim they have evidence that the Chinese company trained their AI model by using data it had lifted from OpenAI. OpenAI claimed to the Financial Times that it had evidence DeepSeek trained its AI by using OpenAI's models.

Sam Altman’s OpenAI said Chinese competitor DeepSeek could be committing intellectual property theft. DeepSeek, an emerging Chinese artificial intelligence company, sent shockwaves through the technology world when its AI model surged to the top of the app store in the United States this week.