Aussie uni student behind banned Chinese AI platform DeepSeek
A graduate of two Aussie universities is a key player in the development of a controversial Chinese AI platform banned by the Australian government.
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An “important contributor” in the development of a controversial Chinese artificial intelligence platform studied at two major Australian universities.
DeepSeek researcher Zizheng Pan completed a masters in computer science at the University of Adelaide in 2020, before completing a PhD in the same discipline at Monash University last year.
Dr Pan was involved in a research collaboration between Australia and China as part of the Zhaung Intelligent Processing Lab (ZIP Lab) at Monash University, which focused on machine learning systems.
He also previously graduated from Harbin Institute of Technology, a Chinese university reportedly flagged as high risk by security experts for its close links to the People’s Liberation Army.
The software engineer has now been identified as a key player in the development of Chinese AI start-up, DeepSeek.
The popularity of the platform saw it overtake OpenAI’s ChatGPT on the App Store after launching its latest model last month.
Zhiding Yu, a former colleague at rival US company Nvidia, said Dr Pan made the “decisive” choice to join DeepSeek in July 2024 with “little hesitation”.
“I am still very much impressed by Zizheng’s decision at that time,” he wrote on social media last week.
“He has been an important contributor of several important works at DeepSeek, including DeepSeek-VL2, DeepSeek-V3, and DeepSeek-R1.”
The news comes just days after Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke imposed a ban on DeepSeek on all federal government systems and devices over data security concerns.
“AI is a technology full of potential and opportunity – but the government will not hesitate to act when our agencies identify a national security risk,” Burke said in a statement on Tuesday.
China was quick to respond, with foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun saying the government attached “great importance to data privacy and security”.
“We have never asked and will never ask any company or individual to collect or store data against laws,” he said in a press conference on Thursday.
“China has all along opposed moves to overstretch the concept of national security or politicise trade and tech issues.”
However, Burke maintained the government’s decision to ban the platform was about protecting government assets.
Government bodies are required to delete all DeepSeek products from their devices under the new ban, excluding corporate organisations like Australia Post.
Originally published as Aussie uni student behind banned Chinese AI platform DeepSeek
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