The company also chose not to list it in its app store.

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Microsoft President Brad Smith stated that the restrictions are related to the risk of data storage in China and the possible influence of Chinese propaganda on DeepSeek's responses, reports TechCrunch.
The publication notes that some countries and organizations have already imposed restrictions on DeepSeek. Microsoft publicly announced such a ban for the first time.
However, the company has listed the DeepSeek R1 model in its Azure cloud service. Upon launch, users saw a message about thorough review and security assessment.
TechCrunch emphasizes that the DeepSeek app competes with Microsoft's Copilot chatbot. The company restricts competitors selectively: Perplexity is available in the Microsoft Store, while Google's Gemini is not.