Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app DeepSeek topped the Apple App Store’s free downloads in both China and the U.S. on Monday, outpacing ChatGPT in free downloads in the U.S.
Following the momentum, DeepSeek-related stocks rallied strong on Monday’s opening with multiple stocks opening more than 10 percent higher.
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek in January released the latest open-source model DeepSeek-R1, which has achieved an important technological breakthrough – using pure deep learning methods to allow AI to spontaneously emerge with reasoning capabilities, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
In tasks such as mathematics, coding and natural language reasoning, the performance of this model is comparable to the leading models from heavyweights like OpenAI, according to DeepSeek.
The app soon sparked global attention, which has Silicon Valley marveling at how its programmers nearly matched American rivals despite using relevantly less-powerful chips, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Sunday.
For instance, “Deepseek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen,” said Marc Andreessen, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist who has been advising President Trump, in an X post on Friday.
Barrett Woodside, co-founder of the San Francisco AI hardware company Positron, said he and his colleagues have been abuzz about DeepSeek. “It’s very cool,” said Woodside, pointing to DeepSeek’s open-source models in which the software code behind the AI model is made available free, per the WSJ report.
