KEY TAKEAWAYS OpenAI said Wednesday that it is probing whether Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek improperly used its data to launch the low-cost model that spooked markets Monday.The comment by OpenAI follows a Bloomberg report that both OpenAI and its biggest backer Microsoft are investigating DeepSeek's model.

Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek disrupted Silicon Valley with the release of cheaply developed AI models that compete with flagship offerings from OpenAI — but the ChatGPT maker suspects they were built upon OpenAI data.

Top White House advisers this week expressed alarm that China's DeepSeek may have benefited from a method that allegedly piggybacks off the advances of U.S. rivals called "distillation." The technique,