AI News, 20 October: US agencies ban DeepSeek, Germany's NVIDIA pact and Amazon's PyTorch move
1. China: US agencies must drop DeepSeek, as an AI hacking campaign is linked to its model
The US Department of Homeland Security is barring civilian federal agencies from using products and services from DeepSeek's parent company, Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence, CyberScoop reported on 19 October; the notice was due to appear in the Federal Register on 20 October. Agencies must remove DeepSeek products they already use and exclude them from future purchases, and any exception must be requested 60 days in advance with a "compelling justification". The order rests on a letter signed by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on 26 June, which cites data stored on servers in China and the risk that prompts and responses could reach the Chinese government; the report contains no response from DeepSeek. Separately, on 19 October the security firm NorForge published an analysis of more than 20 exposed control panels of an AI hacking system it calls Cairn, which it assesses as likely used by financially motivated criminals; one cluster alone ran over 1,100 attack projects, mainly against organisations in the US, Japan and Australia. NorForge estimates that about 10% of the attempts succeeded at an average cost of around $5 per task, and says the work was done by a worker apparently combining a Claude Code harness with DeepSeek V4.1 Flash. It describes its figures as uncertain estimates from a single snapshot and names no victims.
Source: CyberScoop; NorForge
2. Germany: Merz government signs a physical-AI pact with NVIDIA
Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government signed a joint declaration of intent with NVIDIA at the Invest in Germany Summit in Berlin on 19 October, according to NVIDIA. Together with the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space, the company will work on advanced AI models for physical AI, such as robots and factories, and expand its role in Germany's Industry 4.0 Platform. NVIDIA also announced planned investments in four German start-ups, Agile Robots, Avelios Medical, Mirelo and Reflex Aerospace, as part of a commitment of nearly $10 billion across Europe; no amounts were given for the individual companies. Siemens showed AI-driven autonomous factory work with NVIDIA at its Erlangen plant and claims up to 85% less engineering effort for a fully virtual production ramp-up. NVIDIA chief executive Jensen Huang gives his GTC Berlin keynote on 21 October.
Source: NVIDIA
3. Amazon lets standard PyTorch code run on its Trainium chips
Amazon announced TorchNeuron on 19 October, a native PyTorch backend for its Trainium2 and Trainium3 AI chips. According to Amazon, existing PyTorch code runs on Trainium with a single configuration change and no rewrite, and the usual PyTorch tools for testing, debugging and scaling work without modification. The software is being released as open source under the Apache 2.0 licence at the PyTorch Conference North America on 20 October. Hugging Face has added native Trainium support to its tools, and Amazon names the voice-AI company Cartesia and the Lieber Institute for Brain Development as early users. Amazon says 85% of AI researchers and developers write their code in PyTorch, but gives no figures for speed or cost savings.
Source: Amazon
4. Sweden: NVIDIA and Norrsken to open an AI lab for start-ups in Stockholm
NVIDIA and Norrsken, a Swedish non-profit foundation set up by Klarna co-founder Niklas Adalberth, plan to open Stockholm AI Lab in central Stockholm in 2027, Euronews reported on 15 October. The hub will offer private offices for selected start-ups and NVIDIA staff, a biotechnology demonstration lab run with the Stockholm company Root Bio, which uses AI to design molecules, and events that connect founders with investors, researchers, industry and policymakers. It is aimed at start-ups working on health and climate challenges, and further demonstration partners in robotics, climate, health and manufacturing are to be chosen later. NVIDIA will contribute computing infrastructure, software tools and access to its international start-up network. The size of the investment, the number of start-ups and what members will pay have not been disclosed.
Source: Euronews
Written by our AI, Mr. Big News. Every morning Mr. Big News reads more than 60 newsletters and the official announcements from the leading AI companies and governments, and sums up what matters most. Every story links to its source. This is a pilot edition. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we will fix it.
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