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In the last few weeks, big names in the artificial intelligence segment have been warning the US about China’s rapid growth in the AI segment. However, it seems that things are going even faster than previously thought. DeepSeek, a newly created AI-powered chatbot, has overtaken ChatGPT as the top-downloaded free app on Apple’s App Store in the US.
DeepSeek, an AI from a Chinese startup, outperforms ChatGPT on Apple’s App Store
DeepSeek is an AI-powered chatbot similar to ChatGPT, but powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model. US authorities are probably not very happy to know that it was developed by a startup based in Hangzhou, China. Hangzhou is known for being home to many key technological developments in the country, like Cupertino and Mountain View in the US.
The DeepSeek team just released the app a couple of weeks ago, but it didn’t take long for it to become the most downloaded of the week in the US App Store, dethroning ChatGPT. What’s really impressive about the platform is that its performance surpasses multiple AI models—including ChatGPT itself—on several parameters. Not only that, but it also offers features that you need to pay for on ChatGPT for free.
Fortunately, the DeepSeek-V3 model is open source. This should allay fears about potential unauthorized data extraction for Chinese espionage, as anyone can audit the code.
The fact that DeepSeek’s developers say its training cost less than $6 million is another big worry for the US. This is many times less than the huge amounts of money other companies were spending on AI hardware. Plus, the model manages to outperform other popular ones using much less powerful training hardware—older NVIDIA H800 chips. This has caused a huge shock in the industry, mainly reflected in NVIDIA’s stock falling by more than 17% (at the time of writing this story).
The effectiveness of trade restrictions against China, in doubt
This new development raises many questions about the effectiveness of trade restrictions on China. The previous Biden administration implemented some measures to prevent China from accessing key AI hardware. However, Beijing’s industry has managed to walk on swampy ground and come out unscathed.
It’s noteworthy that there are researchers who are dubious about the true capabilities of the model. Some believe that the developers might be a bit optimistic when promoting it. Anyway, US trade restrictions on China seem to be less effective than officials thought.
Currently, the United States and funds are financing the Stargate project. The initiative plans to build large data centers and power plants for the development of AI in the country. However, US officials may have to redouble their efforts if they want to avoid falling behind China in the segment. DeepSeek seems to have emerged “out of nowhere,” achieving great results, and there is nothing to say that more similar situations will not occur soon.