SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's industry ministry has temporarily blocked employee access to Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek due to security concerns, a ministry official said on Wednesday, as the government urges caution on generative AI services.

The government issued a notice on Tuesday calling for ministries and agencies to exercise caution about using AI services including DeepSeek and ChatGPT at work, officials said.

State-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power said it had blocked use of AI services including DeepSeek earlier this month.

The defence ministry has also blocked access to DeepSeek on its computers that are for military use, officials said on Thursday.

The foreign ministry has restricted access to DeepSeek in computers that connect to external networks, Yonhap News Agency said. The ministry said it cannot confirm specific security measures.

DeepSeek did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

It was not immediately clear if the ministries had taken any actions against ChatGPT.

The ban makes South Korea the latest government to warn about or place restrictions on DeepSeek.

Australia and Taiwan have banned DeepSeek this week from all government devices over concerns that the Chinese artificial intelligence startup poses security risks.

Italy's data protection authority ordered DeepSeek in January to block its chatbot in the country after the Chinese startup failed to address the regulator's concerns over its privacy policy.

Some other governments in Europe, the U.S. and India are also examining implications of using DeepSeek.

South Korea's information privacy watchdog plans to ask DeepSeek about how the personal information of users is managed.

Chinese startup DeepSeek's launch of its latest AI models last month sent shockwaves through the tech world. The company says its models are on a par with or better than products developed in the United States and are produced at a fraction of the cost.

South Korean chat app operator Kakao Corp has told its employees to refrain from using DeepSeek due to security fears, a spokesperson said on Wednesday, a day after the company announced its partnership with generative artificial intelligence heavyweight OpenAI.

Korean tech companies are now being more careful about using generative AI. SK Hynix ( HXSCF ) , a maker of AI chips, has restricted access to generative AI services, and allowed limited use when necessary, a spokesperson said.

Naver, a major South Korean web portal, said it had asked employees not to use generative AI services that store data outside the company.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin, Joyce Lee, Hyonhee Shin, Hyunsu Yim, Ju-min Park, writing by Ju-min Park; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Alex Richardson, Toby Chopra and Muralikumar Anantharaman)