HUDSON INSTITUTE 1AI, NATIONAL SECURITY, AND THE GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY RACE
POLICY MEMO
AI, National Security, and
the Global Technology Race:
How US Export Controls Define
the Future of Innovation
NURY TURKEL
Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
March 2025
President Donald Trump has called China’s DeepSeek artificial
intelligence (AI) system a “wake-up call” for the American
technology sector and emphasized the need for the United
States to remain “laser-focused” on winning the AI race.
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His warning reflects growing concerns that China’s rapid
advancements in AI—enabled by loopholes in US export
control laws—pose a direct threat to national security and
economic dominance. Without decisive action, the United
States risks losing its competitive edge in one of the most
consequential technology races of the twenty-first century.
The launch of DeepSeek has heightened security concerns in
the United States, leading to calls for stricter export controls
to curb China’s access to advanced AI technologies.
2
In
response, the state of New York banned DeepSeek from
government devices, citing serious national security risks,
including data privacy vulnerabilities and state-sponsored
censorship.
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The Pentagon and Capitol Hill also banned the
use of the chatbot.
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Meanwhile, Beijing continues to advocate
for open-source AI, arguing that broader accessibility fosters
global technological advancement. However, critics warn that
unrestricted openness could enable adversarial nations to
exploit cutting-edge AI research for mass surveillance, cyber
warfare, and disinformation campaigns. While open-source
AI has fueled rapid innovation and democratized access to
AI tools, its potential misuse—particularly by authoritarian
regimes—raises concerns about national security and
economic competition.
DeepSeek represents a fundamentally different model of
AI—one that enforces ideological censorship and suppresses
