The watchdog blocked access to DeepSeek after the companies that provide the DeepSeek chatbot service allegedly failed to provide it with information about the personal data collected.

Italy's data protection authority said on Thursday it had blocked Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek over a lack of information on its use of personal data.

The jury is still out on whether the Chinese AI upstart DeepSeek is a game changer or part of an elaborate plan by its hedge fund parent company to short