The country's data watchdog says the firm gave it 'completely insufficient' answers to questions about what it does with user information Italy's Data Protection Agency on Thursday launched an investigation into the AI chatbot of Chinese start-up DeepSeek and said it had blocked it from processing Italian users' data.

The DeepSeek chatbot, known as R1, responds to user queries just like its U.S.-based counterparts. Early testing released by DeepSeek suggests that its quality rivals that of other AI products, while the company says it costs less and uses far fewer specialized chips than do its competitors.