Australia has banned DeepSeek from all government devices, a top official said Wednesday.

The DeepSeek chatbot - developed by a China-based startup - has astounded industry insiders and upended financial markets since it was released last month.

But a growing list of countries including South Korea, Italy and France have voiced questions over how the application handles personal data and what information is used to train DeepSeek's AI system.

Australia upped the ante overnight banning DeepSeek from all government devices, one of the toughest moves against the Chinese chatbot yet.

"This is an action the government has taken on the advice of security agencies. It's absolutely not a symbolic move," said government cyber security envoy Andrew Charlton.

In an interview with national broadcaster ABC, Charlton voiced concern that uploaded information "might not be kept private".

Australia's Home Affairs Department issued a directive to government employees overnight.

"After considering threat and risk analysis, I have determined that the use of DeepSeek products, applications and web services poses an unacceptable level of security risk to the Australian Government," Department of Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster said in the directive.

As of Wednesday all non-corporate Commonwealth entities must "identify and remove all existing instances of DeepSeek products, applications and web services on all Australian Government systems and mobile devices," she added.

The directive also required that "access, use or installation of DeepSeek products" be prevented across government systems and mobile devices.

Industry experts have said the Hangzhou-based firm has embraced a more accessible, opensource approach towards AI development, fostering collaboration and experimentation that could lead to faster breakthroughs.

They also said the firm has unveiled large language models challenging the dominate tools developing by its US rivals, but at a lower cost.

In 2018, Australia banned Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from its national 5G network, citing national security concerns, and TikTok was banned from government devices in 2023 on the advice of Australian intelligence agencies. (AFP & agencies)