The inquiry follows U.S. government allegations that Moonshot AI used unauthorized distillation and restricted computing systems to develop its models.
Two House committees have expanded their investigation into Chinese-developed AI models to include DoorDash after the company disclosed using a Moonshot AI model in an internal coding system.
The House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party asked DoorDash to provide records about its use of Kimi K2.6, an open-weight model developed by China-based Moonshot AI.
The committees are investigating the national security, cybersecurity and economic security risks of U.S. companies using Chinese-developed models in software and systems that can access sensitive business or personal information.
DoorDash used Chinese AI for lower-level coding tasks
DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang said in July that the company had added open-weight models to an internal AI-assisted code-review system.
According to the committees’ letter, DoorDash sent more difficult tasks to a U.S.-developed AI model and routed lower-level work to Kimi K2.6.
DoorDash said the new system performed better on its internal coding benchmark than the configuration it replaced while also lowering costs. The previous system used Anthropic’s Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.8 models.
The committees said Chinese open-weight models may offer strong performance, lower costs and greater control over how they are deployed. Companies can also operate the models within their own computing environments rather than sending information to an outside hosted service.
However, the committees said those benefits do not answer questions about how the models were developed, whether their software components came from trustworthy sources or how they will behave when given access to company code, data and development tools.
Moonshot allegations raise additional questions
U.S. officials previously accused Moonshot AI of using unauthorized distillation, a process for extracting capabilities from another company’s AI model, and of obtaining restricted computing systems.
The committees said those allegations may indicate that Moonshot is an untrustworthy technology supplier, even if Kimi K2.6 appears to function normally. They want to know whether using the model could expose DoorDash’s code, data or systems to security risks, and whether DoorDash adequately considered those risks before deploying it.
Lawmakers also asked whether DoorDash took precautionary measures after learning of the allegations.
Committees seek testing and security records
The committees asked DoorDash to identify every AI model developed by a Chinese company that it has evaluated or used since January 1, 2025.
They also requested information about DoorDash’s security testing, model approval procedures, access controls and monitoring. The request covers testing for insecure code generation, unauthorized data transmission, prompt injection, and misuse of system permissions.
DoorDash must also provide documents explaining why it selected each model and any plans for replacing one if access becomes restricted or new security risks emerge.
The committees requested the documents by August 14 and asked DoorDash employees responsible for AI infrastructure, security, procurement and compliance to attend an in-person briefing by August 21.
The DoorDash request follows letters sent to Airbnb and coding-software company Anysphere in April. The committees said they have since held discussions with both companies about their evaluation and use of Chinese open-weight AI models.
