The AI assistant built by Chinese tech startup DeepSeek has overtaken ChatGPT as the top-rated free app on Apple’s App Store in the United States less than three weeks after its January 10 launch.
Described by its creators as a model that “tops the leaderboard among open-source models and rivals the most advanced closed-source models globally,” the app is powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model.
Analytics from Sensor Tower confirms its growing popularity and its ability to challenge long-held perceptions of US dominance in AI innovation.
DeepSeek’s achievement is commendable given the tough US export controls designed to limit China’s access to advanced chips and AI capabilities.
These controls, expanded by the Biden administration since 2021, aim to curb the training of AI models in China. Nonetheless, DeepSeek researchers revealed in a recent paper that their model was trained using Nvidia’s H800 chips, reportedly costing less than $6 million.
Although the assertions about the chips and training costs are being discussed, the issue of US export policies’ effectiveness in slowing China’s technological advancements is still an issue to be addressed.
Some US tech executives have questioned whether these measures can truly contain China’s progress in the AI sector.
Founded in Hangzhou in 2023, DeepSeek is part of a wave of Chinese companies developing AI models since Baidu introduced China’s first large-language model.
However, the growth of DeepSeek is exceptional—it is the first Chinese AI model to receive wide recognition in the US for potentially matching or surpassing leading American AI models, like ChatGPT.
