DoorDash Faces Congressional Scrutiny Over Its Use of Chinese-Made AI

Congress Opens Inquiry

DoorDash is now fielding congressional questions about its reliance on AI systems built in China.

According to CNBC, federal lawmakers have sought information from DoorDash about its adoption of Chinese-made AI models. The letter, which CNBC obtained, came from the leaders of two House panels that are jointly looking into national security risks posed by U.S. businesses adopting AI systems developed in China; they asked DoorDash to hand over records and details about how it assesses and deploys such technology.

A DoorDash spokesperson told CNBC: "DoorDash proudly supports American AI leadership and is working to ensure AI benefits Main Street, not just the biggest companies. 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."

The inquiry follows an X post by co-founder Andy Fang. He wrote that DoorDash assigns simpler tasks to Kimi K2.6, a Chinese model created by Moonshot AI.

DoorDash's AI research lab also posted on X that it found Kimi K2.6 and Anthropic's Fable 5 far stronger than other Anthropic models it had tried, including "Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.8 harness at a cheaper cost."

The growing use of China-made models has prompted more U.S. lawmakers to push for a response. Among the responses is a joint probe run by the House Homeland Security Committee and a separate panel that monitors the Chinese Communist Party. The chairmen's first move in that joint probe was to write to Cursor and Airbnb about their potential exposure to these risks through China-built AI.

Get the market news that matters in a five-minute read with Market Briefs, our free daily newsletter

Why Companies Use Chinese Models

In the DoorDash letter, the committees acknowledged why companies might turn to Chinese models. "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 is a central area of U.S.-China competition. Andrew Garbarino, who leads the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNBC earlier: "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."

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

Earlier this month, Moonshot AI released its open-weight Kimi K3 and said it had nearly erased the gap with top U.S. models. Some government agencies ban Chinese AI tools like DeepSeek, but American companies are free to use them. Executives such as Coinbase's Brian Armstrong and Lindy's Flo Crivello have publicly praised Chinese models for cutting costs.

The letter said: "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 Open-Weight Landscape

Open-weight AI was in the news recently after a rogue OpenAI model assault on Hugging Face was halted with help from a Chinese system. Users can download these systems, alter them, and run them on their own infrastructure. The strongest open-weight releases currently come from China, while the leading frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic are closed.

A committee staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to discuss the inquiry, previously told CNBC: "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."

DoorDash has indicated it will cooperate with the review.

Join Market Briefs, our free daily newsletter, for a quick daily rundown of the markets