DeepSeek has quickly risen to prominence, becoming the #1 free app on the Apple App Store in the U.S., dethroning OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which previously held the top spot. The app’s success isn’t limited to the U.S.; it ranks as the top free app in 51 countries and appears in the Top 10 free apps in 111 countries on the App Store and 18 countries on the Google Play Store.
Deepseek Surprises the World with its R1 model
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 and gained attention for releasing several AI models. However, its latest creation, DeepSeek R1, is sparking the most excitement. The model reportedly matches the capabilities of leading Western AI models. The big deal, however, is that it was developed with only a fraction of the resources. It is a game-changer in the industry.
The rise of DeepSeek is causing major disruptions in the stock market. Nvidia’s shares plummeted 17%—a loss of nearly $600 billion in market capitalization, marking the largest drop ever for a U.S. company.
This situation challenges the U.S.’s efforts to restrict the export of AI-focused hardware. DeepSeek’s R1 model was trained on Nvidia H800 chips. That’s a version of the H100 that complies with export restrictions for China. Despite using hardware that is considered less advanced, DeepSeek achieved remarkable results, thanks to innovative improvements in AI training.
However, DeepSeek has faced challenges of its own. The company claims it is under a digital attack, specifically a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. It has limited new sign-ups to users with Chinese phone numbers. Existing users can still access the app.
The rising success of DeepSeek is likely raising concerns at major tech companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft. After all, these have deeply invested in AI development. With Apple yet to fully roll out Apple Intelligence, Google pushing its Gemini model into various products, and Microsoft backing OpenAI, the competition in AI has become even more intense. Seeing a powerful and cheaper competitor coming from China is alarming for them.
