U.S. lawmakers request information from DoorDash on use of Chinese AI

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.”