What Is DeepSeek, The Chinese AI App Challenging OpenAI And Silicon Valley?
Taiwo Ayandeyi
There's a new player in Artificial Intelligence market, Deepseek. Deepseek is a new AI model from China, has captured the attention of the tech world, surpassing the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude AI in performance.
The DeepSeek app, which was launched last week, has overtaken rivals including ChatGPT to become the most downloaded free app in the United States. Shares in US-based and AI-related tech firms such as Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta were all down on Monday ahead of the US markets opening, reports BBC.
What is Deepseek, China's Game changer in AI?: Explained in 10 points
-DeepSeek is a Hangzhou-based AI research lab and the R1 is its latest AI model. The company was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, an engineer and entrepreneur with a background in AI and quantitative finance, according to India Today.
-Before creating DeepSeek, he led a hedge fund known for using AI to analyse financial data. Liang’s team at DeepSeek mostly consists of fresh graduates from top Chinese universities like Tsinghua and Peking University.
-The company has now developed AI models that are open-source and helping developers across the world to improve their technologies. It is powered by the open-source DeepSeek-V3 model, which its researchers claim was developed for less than $6m (£7.5m) - significantly less than the billions spent by rivals.
-DeepSeek is an advanced open-source AI system, it surpassed OpenAI's ChatGPT to become the top-rated free app on Apple's App Store in several countries, including the US, the UK, and China. DeepSeek's rise to prominence made a splash in Silicon Valley, challenging the belief that the US held a dominant position in this space.
DeepSeek's latest release, R1, rivals industry leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic but stands out for being cost-efficient, open source, and offering unlimited free usage. It enables high-performance AI access without the steep costs typically associated with such technologies, according to a NDTV report.
-The one thing that sets DeepSeek R1, which is said to mimic human thinking, apart from other AI models is that it also provides its reasoning before delivering a response to a prompt. The company claims its performance is on par with OpenAI’s latest technology.
-DeepSeek’s AI models are developed at a fraction of the cost compared to leading products from OpenAI and Meta, raising questions about the need for huge investments in high-end AI accelerators like those from Nvidia.
-One of the key reasons why DeepSeek has managed to create a buzz is its cost to end users: it is free. In a way, this is the first extremely advanced AI system that is available for free to users. Other systems, like the OpenAI o1 and Claude Sonnet, require a paid subscription. Google Gemini, too, is available for free, but it is also limited to older models for free versions and does have usage limits.
-The key reason for the buzz around DeepSeek is that the Chinese AI assistant is celebrated for its transparency, efficiency, and ability to make AI accessible to everyone. DeepSeek's breakthrough comes at a time when the US has placed restrictions on advanced semiconductor exports to China, with the aim of limiting China's ability to advance in AI. DeepSeek has managed to work around these restrictions by developing models that require fewer resources.
-The rise of DeepSeek has had an immediate effect on stock markets. Shares of major US AI-related companies, including Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft, dropped in response to DeepSeek's success. Analysts have warned that the rise of low-cost Chinese alternatives to established US AI models could disrupt the investment landscape, forcing companies to reconsider their AI strategies.
