The WSJ reported on China's call for its AI specialists to avoid traveling to the United States.

Chinese authorities have called on their leading figures in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) to avoid trips to USA amid security concerns. This was reported on March 1 by the newspaper The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

"Chinese authorities have ordered leading entrepreneurs and researchers in the field of artificial intelligence to avoid visits to the United States. This reflects Beijing's view of this technology as a priority for the economy and national security," the article says.

According to the newspaper, the authorities are concerned that Chinese artificial intelligence experts traveling abroad may disclose confidential information about the country's progress in this area. They also fear that industry leaders could be detained and used as a bargaining chip in negotiations between the United States and China.

"AI has become the latest technology battleground between the United States and China, symbolized by the emergence of Chinese AI models from companies such as DeepSeek and Alibaba," the article says.

As representatives of the technology industry noted, there was no direct ban on travel to the United States. This was just a recommendation from the authorities of China's largest technology centers, including Shanghai, Beijing, and Zhejiang Province, where Alibaba and DeepSeek are based. Local authorities discourage the heads of leading local companies in the field of AI and other strategically important industries, such as robotics, from traveling to the United States and its allies.

According to anonymous sources, DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng declined an invitation to attend the AI summit in Paris, which took place in February 2025. Also, the founder of another major Chinese AI startup abandoned his plan to visit the United States in 2024 after instructions from Beijing.

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Platform DeepSeek is being developed by the company of the same name, which was founded in 2023 in Hangzhou. Its owner is the Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer, focused on the use of AI in the development of algorithms for securities trading. The chatbot is available to users all over the world in the format of both a mobile application and a web page.

On January 30, the United States reported about getting into the public domain confidential data of the Chinese neural network DeepSeek. As a result, the programmers gained full control over the database, which was completely open and disclosed confidential data.