HR 10484
Covered AI Prohibition Act
TL;DR
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) introduced this bill to ban the U.S. Department of Defense from buying or using AI systems developed by companies tied to the Chinese Communist Party, including firms like DeepSeek. It targets defense procurement specifically and would force contractors to prove their AI supply chain is free of Chinese-affiliated technology.
How This Might Impact Your Business
Defense contractors and subcontractors would be barred from selling AI products to DoD if those products incorporate models or components from CCP-affiliated companies (DeepSeek being the primary named target).
Any company in the DoD supply chain using foundation models, APIs, or AI infrastructure from Chinese-linked vendors would need to rip and replace those tools to remain eligible for contracts.
Cloud providers and AI platform vendors serving defense customers would face new disclosure obligations about the origin of their models and training data.
Commercial AI companies with mixed U.S. and Chinese investment or R&D operations could see contracts blocked pending ownership review.
Compliance costs would fall hardest on mid-tier defense tech firms and startups that rely on cheaper open-source models from Chinese labs to keep pricing competitive.
Bill is at the earliest stage (referred to House Armed Services); no penalties or effective dates finalized, but expect NDAA-style enforcement through contract debarment if enacted.
Non-defense businesses are not directly regulated, but companies with dual-use products may face pressure to segregate Chinese-origin AI from federal-facing offerings.
What Should You Do
Ask your CTO or procurement team to inventory every AI model, API, and dataset in use and flag anything sourced from DeepSeek, Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, or other Chinese-linked providers.
If you sell to DoD or prime contractors, brief your legal and BD teams now so you can answer supply-chain origin questions in upcoming RFP responses.
Identify U.S. or allied-country alternatives (OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Llama, Mistral) for any Chinese-origin models currently in your stack and price out a migration.
Monitor House Armed Services Committee markup schedule and watch for this language being folded into the FY26 NDAA, which is the likely vehicle for passage.
Review investor cap tables and joint venture agreements for Chinese ownership exposure that could disqualify you from defense work.
Who It Affects
Sponsors
Status Timeline
committee
Referred to the House Committee on Armed Services.
September 17, 2026