Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app DeepSeek has overtaken ChatGPT and other rivals to become the top-rated free application on Apple’s App Store in the US, UK and China.
The app has surged in popularity since its launch in January, challenging the widely-held belief that America is the untouchable leader of the AI industry.
It is powered by the open-source DeepSeek-V3 model, which its researchers claim was developed for less than $6m – significantly less than the billions spent by rivals.
But this claim has been disputed by others in the AI space.
After DeepSeek-R1 was launched earlier this month the company boasted of “performance on par with” one of ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s latest models – when used for tasks such as maths, coding and natural language reasoning.
Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Donald Trump advisor Marc Andreessen described DeepSeek-R1 as “AI’s Sputnik moment”, in a reference to the first artificial Earth satellite that was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957.
Advanced chips power the training of AI models like ChatGPT and DeepSeek.
But since 2021 the US government has widened its restrictions on advanced chips being sold to China.
In order to continue their work without steady supplies of imported advanced chips, Chinese AI developers have shared their work with each other and experimented with new approaches to the technology.
This has resulted in AI models that require far less computing power than before. It also means that they cost a lot less than previously thought possible, which has the potential to upend the industry.
