China’s AI Assistant DeepSeek Becomes Top Free iPhone App

DeepSeek's AI assistant, developed in China, has become the most popular free app on the iPhone.

The Rapid Rise of DeepSeek

The Chinese AI assistant DeepSeek has taken the tech world by storm, claiming the top spot as the most popular free app on Apple’s App Store in the US and beyond, surpassing ChatGPT and other significant competitors.

An Innovative Business and Technology Model

DeepSeek sets itself apart with its open-source model, DeepSeek V3, which operates with significantly less computational power than its rivals and was developed with less than $6 million. Although these claims have been disputed, they remain notably impressive.

Available as a web service, app, and API, DeepSeek offers features similar to AI assistants like ChatGPT, including coding content creation and search capabilities. Its initial version, DeepSeek-R1, is released under an MIT license, allowing commercial use without restrictions.

Remarkable Performance Despite Hardware Disadvantages

Founded in 2023 in Hangzhou, China, by Liang Wenfeng, who also initiated a hedge fund supporting DeepSeek, the company strategically acquired NVIDIA A100 chips before a US export ban and paired them with less powerful chips still permissible for import, according to the MIT Technology Review.

Despite significant hardware disadvantages compared to models from OpenAI, Google, and others, the company has been forced into greater efficiency in its AI models, reportedly constructing and training them at costs far below previously deemed possible.

Questions About the Future of AI

However, analysts from Citi and elsewhere have questioned these achievements, pointing out that China poses a “more restrictive environment” for AI development than the US. Nevertheless, DeepSeek’s rise has stirred concerns about the potential profitability of competitors like OpenAI, who have invested billions in AI infrastructure. Indeed, the announcement of DeepSeek’s success on the App Store led to a sharp decline in tech stocks, including NVIDIA and ASML.