DeepSeek, an AI-based assistant from the Chinese startup of the same name, has topped the list of free apps in the US App Store, beating ChatGPT, the industry leader, and many others. This was reported by Reuters.
The application was officially launched in the United States only on January 10, 2025, but within two weeks it surpassed ChatGPT by OpenAI in popularity. According to the description, the AI assistant is based on the DeepSeek-V3 model, which, according to the developers, "matches the highest international models in many tests."
The unexpected popularity of DeepSeek, particularly among American users, has raised doubts among U.S. officials and Silicon Valley representatives about the U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence and the effectiveness of AI chip export controls to China.
Researchers from the Chinese startup previously reported that NVIDIA H800 chips were used to train the V3 model, and that less than $6 million was spent on the entire training. Such statements raised a lot of doubts about their veracity, but the fact that less powerful chips were used to train models and lower costs raised concerns among the heads of American tech companies.
Despite the fact that DeepSeek is a relatively young startup about which little is known, it has already made a lot of noise in recent weeks, in particular because of the R1 model, which is as good as OpenAI's o1 model, but supposedly 90-95% cheaper. But it is still not worth asking about Tiananmen Square and what happened there in 1989.