The political and economic fallout over DeepSeek dominated headlines this week. The purported gains by the Chinese AI firm shook investors and erased many billions of dollars in market capitalization here in the U.S. At his confirmation hearing to be the next commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick accused DeepSeek of stealing American intellectual property to drive its AI gains.

DeepSeek’s developers unveiled a new model this month that they say is the equal of the U.S. company OpenAI, at just a small fraction of the cost. That prompted panicked investors to sell tech stocks earlier this week, in turn sparking a record-setting stock drop for the company Nvidia.

Mr. Lutnick told senators that DeepSeek’s conduct was “outrageous” and that Chinese intellectual property theft should be expected when American export controls on technology are not backed by stiff tariffs.

“They’ve disrespected us. They’ve figured out their ways around it. I do not believe that DeepSeek was done all above-board, that’s nonsense. OK?” Mr. Lutnick told the Senate Commerce Committee. “They stole things, they broke in, they’ve taken our [intellectual property]. It’s got to end, and I’m going to be rigorous in our pursuit of restrictions and enforcing those restrictions to keep us in the lead because we must stay in the lead.”

DeepSeek has soared in popularity, climbing to the top of Apple’s App Store download list, and provoking questions about its sudden emergence as a competitor to other top generative AI products.

Users of DeepSeek’s platform have reported the firm’s chatbot has answered queries about its model by explaining that it uses OpenAI’s infrastructure and that its identity is ChatGPT.

OpenAI, and its financial benefactor Microsoft, are probing whether the Chinese firm ripped off OpenAI’s information and incorporated it into DeepSeek’s work, according to Bloomberg. Policymakers in Washington are also eager to understand if China deliberately took steps to leverage DeepSeek’s development to sabotage the American stock market.

Lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee are looking for ways to speed up the Pentagon’s acquisition process.

Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, Mississippi Republican, this week called for major changes to the defense budgeting process and for new deregulation efforts. At a committee hearing, he complained about the Pentagon persistently falling behind the private sector at a crucial moment in U.S. competition with its global adversaries, namely China.

“The United States is entering the most dangerous period we’ve faced since World War II,” Mr. Wicker said. “Our adversaries are rapidly innovating and leveraging commercial technologies. In response, we must expand our capacity to produce and sustain high-end weapons like ships, aircraft, and missiles, at the same time we must adopt autonomous, adaptive, and networked or swarming systems.”

Mr. Wicker said policymakers must not view defense production decisions as a choice between tradition and innovation. America needs both, he said.

Democrats acknowledged a need for doing things differently, but voiced trepidation about the Trump administration’s ability to lead the way.

Mr. Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence faces sharp questioning Thursday from Senate Democrats — and Republicans — on her past positions that critics say amount to support for foreign adversaries and damaging intelligence disclosures.

National security correspondent Bill Gertz reports former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard should anticipate tough inquiries about her previous support for infamous National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

Mr. Snowden fled to Russia after disclosing what NSA has said is an estimated 1.7 million classified documents, only a few of which were related to domestic NSA surveillance activities, a suspected motive of the whistleblower.

In addition to that, former intelligence officials also have questioned whether Ms. Gabbard is qualified for the sensitive intelligence post, based on a lack of experience and what some critics say has been public support for American adversaries like Russia and North Korea.

Ms. Gabbard also recently changed her mind on controversial spying powers contained in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Ms. Gabbard, the Democrat-turned-Republican from Hawaii, now a strong supporter of Mr. Trump, will have to explain that shift at Thursday’s hearing.

One of Mr. Trump’s first moves as commander in chief was to host tech industry giants Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son for a major announcement at the White House: The topic was the creation of Stargate, a company that will invest $500 billion to build up AI infrastructure in America. The plan, Mr. Trump and the CEOs said, is to establish the U.S. as the global leader in the rapidly evolving AI industry.

At first glance, Stargate seems like a home run for everyone involved. But a closer look reveals reasons for concern, according to Donald Kendal, director of the Emerging Issues Center at The Heartland Institute.

“One significant investor in Stargate, though absent from the White House announcement event, is MGX — a government-created investment fund from the United Arab Emirates. MGX’s involvement raises questions about foreign influence and globalist agendas potentially shaping U.S. technological priorities,” Mr. Kendal writes in a new piece for The Times.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, a close political ally of the president, has expressed his own deep reservations about the financial muscle behind the initiative.

It got relatively little attention amid news of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, but did the Trump administration make a deal that could further compromise Americans’ privacy? Columnist Andrew P. Napolitano examines that in a new piece for The Times, taking aim at so-called “zero-click spyware.”

Mr. Napolitano writes that the Trump administration lifted an embargo on zero-click software manufactured by Israeli corporations. The software can expose the entire contents of one’s mobile or desktop device without the need for a user to click a link, and Mr. Napolitano contends that such tools could be used for systematic snooping on American citizens.

“We can avoid commercial spyware, but how can we avoid a totalitarian government that spies on everyone?” he writes.

• Feb. 3 — Atoms and Algorithms: A View from the Regulator, Stimson Center

• Feb. 6 — Zero Trust Workshop, GovExec

• Feb. 10-11 — Artificial Intelligence Action Summit, the French government

• Feb. 26 — 2025 Defense Software and Data Summit, Govini