U.S. Lawmakers Question DoorDash on Use of Chinese AI Models

U.S. lawmakers have requested information from food delivery company DoorDash on its use of Chinese artificial intelligence models, CNBC has learned, as scrutiny around American businesses' use of systems developed by China ramps up.

In a letter obtained by CNBC, the chairmen of two House committees conducting a joint investigation into security implications of U.S. companies using Chinese AI models asked DoorDash to share "information and documents" relating to its evaluation and deployment of AI systems from China.

"DoorDash proudly supports American AI leadership and is working to ensure AI benefits Main Street, not just the biggest companies," a DoorDash spokesperson told CNBC. "We look forward to engaging with the Committees on how we safely and responsibly use AI, including American-developed frontier models and open-weight models."

Rising adoption of China-built AI models has led to growing calls from U.S. lawmakers for strategies to combat the trend, including via an ongoing investigation from The House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

An initial step in the joint investigation was for the chairmen of those committees to send letters to Cursor and Airbnb, over their "use of or exposure to these risks" through AI developed in China.

The letter cited a post on X by DoorDash founder Andy Fang that details how the company is delegating lower-level AI work to Chinese AI model Kimi K2.6, which is developed by Moonshot AI.

DoorDash's AI research lab had said on X that it had seen Kimi K2.6 and Anthropic's Fable 5 vastly outperform other Anthropic models it had used, including "Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.8 harness at a cheaper cost."

"The Committees recognize that U.S. companies, from large technology firms to startups, may evaluate and deploy PRC-developed open-weight models because they can provide competitive capabilities, lower costs, greater customization, and alternatives to reliance on a small number of proprietary model providers," the letter reads.

It added: "Those practical considerations do not eliminate the need for risk-based safeguards or diminish the national security concerns associated with growing dependence on models developed by entities subject to PRC jurisdiction."

AI has emerged as a key point of rivalry between the U.S. and China, with both nations vying for supremacy in the field.

"The Chinese Communist Party is no longer just nipping at our heels in artificial intelligence; it is racing to close the gap in some of the exact capabilities that will shape the future of cybersecurity," Andrew Garbarino, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, previously told CNBC.

"Recent reporting that a Chinese open-weight model can match leading U.S. models in certain vulnerability discovery and cybersecurity tasks is highly alarming," said Garbarino.

Moonshot AI's release of open weight model Kimi K3 earlier this month claimed to have largely closed the performance gap with leading U.S. models.

While some government departments have banned the usage of Chinese AI models like DeepSeek, adoption by U.S. companies is not prohibited. Tech chiefs, including crypto company Coinbase's Brian Armstrong and AI startup Lindy's Flo Crivello, have been publicly touting the use of models from China to reduce costs.

"An effective federal approach should therefore scrutinize U.S. companies' reliance on [People's Republic of China]-developed models and strengthen the availability, security, and competitiveness of American open-weight alternatives," the letter said.

The availability of open weight models was thrown into the spotlight recently after it emerged that a cyber attack by rogue OpenAI models on Hugging Face was stopped by using a Chinese system.

Open weight models can be downloaded, modified and self-hosted by companies. The most capable open weight models are Chinese made. The leading frontier models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic are closed.

"The Committees are also examining whether the United States has a sufficient open-weight AI strategy to ensure American companies and cyber defenders are not forced to choose between expensive or restricted U.S. models and cheap, capable PRC-developed alternatives," a committee aide, who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing probe, previously told CNBC.