The emergence of DeepSeek’s breakthrough ChatGPT-like AI model has rocked Wall Street, causing shares in Nvidia to tumble.
DeepSeek, a Chinese start-up less than a year old, is developing open source AI models similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. On 10 January 2025 it launched its latest model DeepSeek-R1, and within a week the free smartphone app had surged to the top of the download charts.
By 25 January, the R1 app was downloaded 1.6 million times and ranked No 1 in iPhone app stores in Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, the US and the UK, according to data from market tracker Appfigures.
What has shaken the tech industry is DeepSeek’s claim that it developed its R1 model at a fraction of the cost of its rivals, many of which use expensive chips from US semiconductor giant Nvidia to train their AI models.
What many are now wondering is how DeepSeek was able to produce such an AI model when China lacks access to advanced technologies such as GPU semiconductors due to restrictions. Exports of...