What is DeepSeek, and why is it disrupting the AI sector?

DeepSeek’s launch of its latest AI models, which it says are on a par or better than industry-leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost, is threatening to upset the technology world order.

Chinese startup DeepSeek’s launch of its latest AI models, which it says are on a par or better than industry-leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost, is threatening to upset the technology world order.

The company has attracted attention in global AI circles after writing in a paper in December 2024 that the training of DeepSeek-V3 required less than $6 million worth of computing power from Nvidia H800 chips.

DeepSeek’s AI Assistant, powered by DeepSeek-V3, has overtaken rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple’s App Store in the United States.

This has raised doubts about the reasoning behind some U.S. tech companies’ decision to pledge billions of dollars in AI investment and shares of several big tech players, including Nvidia, have been hit.

Some facts about the company shaking up the AI sector worldwide:

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 caused a scramble among Chinese tech firms, who rushed to create their own chatbots powered by artificial intelligence.

But after the release of the first Chinese ChatGPT equivalent, made by search engine giant Baidu, there was widespread disappointment in China at the gap in AI capabilities between U.S. and Chinese firms.