DeepSeek, an artificial intelligence application developed by a Chinese startup, has surged to the top of Apple’s App Store charts in the United States, overtaking established players like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Released on January 10, 2025, DeepSeek‘s AI assistant quickly gained popularity among US users, becoming the most downloaded free app on the App Store within weeks. The app uses DeepSeek-V3, a model that is said to compete with or even do better than top closed-source models in many tests.
DeepSeek claims to have developed its model at a fraction of the cost compared to US competitors, spending less than $6 million and using less advanced Nvidia H800 chips. And unlike some competitors, DeepSeek has made its model open-source, allowing for greater transparency and accessibility.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella remarked that developments from China should be taken “very, very seriously”. Meanwhile, Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas congratulated DeepSeek on its achievement.
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