Feel free to improve the article, but do not remove this notice before the discussion is closed. For more information, see the guide to deletion. Find sources:"DeepSeek" chatbot – news·newspapers·books·scholar·JSTOR%5B%5BWikipedia%3AArticles+for+deletion%2FDeepSeek+%28chatbot%29%5D%5DAFD
DeepSeek is a chatbot created by the Chinese company DeepSeek.
On 10 January 2025, DeepSeek released the chatbot, based on the DeepSeek-R1 model, for iOS and Android; by 27 January, DeepSeek-R1 had surpassed ChatGPT as the most-downloaded free app on the iOS App Store in the United States,[1] causing Nvidia's share price to drop by 18%.[2][3] DeepSeek's success against larger and more established rivals has been described as "upending AI",[1] constituting "the first shot at what is emerging as a global AI space race",[4] and ushering in "a new era of AI brinkmanship".[5] DeepSeek's compliance with Chinese government censorship policies and its data collection practices have also raised concerns over privacy and information control in the model, prompting regulatory scrutiny in multiple countries.
Release and reaction
DeepSeek released its AI Assistant, which uses the V3 model as a chatbot app for Apple IOS and Android. By 27 January 2025, the app had surpassed ChatGPT as the highest-rated free app on the iOS App Store in the United States. Its chatbot reportedly answers questions, solves logic problems, and writes computer programs on par with other chatbots on the market, according to benchmark tests used by American AI companies.[6]
DeepSeek-V3 uses significantly fewer resources compared to its peers; for example, whereas the world's leading AI companies train their chatbots with supercomputers using as many as 16,000 graphics processing units (GPUs), if not more, DeepSeek claims to have needed only about 2,000 GPUs, namely the H800 series chip from Nvidia.[7] It was trained in around 55 days at a cost of US$5.58 million,[7] which is roughly one tenth of what United States tech giant Meta spent building its latest AI technology.[6]
DeepSeek's competitive performance at relatively minimal cost has been recognized as potentially challenging the global dominance of American AI models.[8] Various publications and news media, such as The Hill and The Guardian, described the release of its chatbot as a "Sputnik moment" for American AI.[9][10] The performance of its R1 model was reportedly "on par with" one of OpenAI's latest models when used for tasks such as mathematics, coding, and natural language reasoning;[11] echoing other commentators, American Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen likewise described R1 as "AI's Sputnik moment".[11]
DeepSeek's founder, Liang Wenfeng has been compared to Open AI CEO Sam Altman, with CNN calling him the Sam Altman of China and an evangelist for AI.[12] Chinese state media widely praised DeepSeek as a national asset.[13][14] On 20 January 2025, China's Premier Li Qiang invited Wenfeng to his symposium with experts and asked him to provide opinions and suggestions on a draft for comments of the annual 2024 government work report.[15]
DeepSeek's optimization of limited resources has highlighted potential limits of United States sanctions on China's AI development, which include export restrictions on advanced AI chips to China.[16][17] The success of the company's AI models consequently "sparked market turmoil"[18] and caused shares in major global technology companies to plunge on 27 January 2025: Nvidia's stock fell by as much as 17–18%,[19] as did the stock of rival Broadcom. Other tech firms also sank, including Microsoft (down 2.5%), Google's owner Alphabet (down over 4%), and Dutch chip equipment maker ASML (down over 7%).[11] A global selloff of technology stocks on Nasdaq, prompted by the release of the R1 model, had led to record losses of about $593 billion in the market capitalizations of AI and computer hardware companies;[20] by 28 January 2025, a total of $1 trillion of value was wiped off American stocks.[10]
The login error DeepSeek gave on 28 January 2025 following a cyberattack
Leading figures in the American AI sector had mixed reactions to DeepSeek's success and performance.[21] Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman—whose companies are involved in the United States government-backed "Stargate Project" to develop American AI infrastructure—both called DeepSeek "super impressive".[22][23] American President Donald Trump, who announced The Stargate Project, called DeepSeek a wake-up call[24] and a positive development.[25][10][11][26] Other leaders in the field, including Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, Anthropic cofounder and CEO Dario Amodei, and Elon Musk expressed skepticism of the app's performance or of the sustainability of its success.[21][27][28] Various companies, including Amazon Web Services, Toyota, and Stripe, are seeking to use the model in their program.[29]
On 27 January 2025, DeepSeek limited its new user registration to phone numbers from mainland China, email addresses, or Google account logins, after a "large-scale" cyberattack disrupted the proper functioning of its servers.[30][31]
DeepSeek has been reported to sometimes claim it is ChatGPT.[32][33] OpenAI said that DeepSeek may have "inappropriately" used outputs from their model as training data, in a process called distillation.[34]
Asked if Xi Jinping is an autocrat, DeepSeek apologises that this question is "beyond my current scope". The same question posed about Narendra Modi returns a "balanced analysis" of viewpoints.
Some sources have observed that the official application programming interface (API) version of R1, which runs from servers located in China, uses censorship mechanisms for topics that are considered politically sensitive for the government of China. For example, the model refuses to answer questions about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, persecution of Uyghurs, comparisons between Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh, and human rights in China.[35][36][37] The AI may initially generate an answer, but then deletes it shortly afterwards and replaces it with a message such as: "Sorry, that's beyond my current scope. Let's talk about something else."[36] The integrated censorship mechanisms and restrictions can only be removed to a limited extent in the open-source version of the R1 model. If the "Core Socialist Values" defined by the Chinese Internet regulatory authorities are touched upon, or the political status of Taiwan is raised, discussions are terminated.[38] When tested by NBC News, DeepSeek's R1 described Taiwan as "an inalienable part of China's territory," and stated: "We firmly oppose any form of 'Taiwan independence' separatist activities and are committed to achieving the complete reunification of the motherland through peaceful means."[39] In January 2025, Western researchers were able to trick DeepSeek into giving certain answers to some of these topics by requesting in its answer to swap certain letters for similar-looking numbers.[37]
Many experts fear that the government of China could use the AI system for foreign influence operations, spreading disinformation, surveillance and the development of cyberweapons.[40][41][42] DeepSeek's privacy terms and conditions say "We store the information we collect in secure servers located in the People's Republic of China... We may collect your text or audio input, prompt, uploaded files, feedback, chat history, or other content that you provide to our model and Services". Although its data storage and collection policy is consistent with ChatGPT's privacy policy,[43] an article by Wired said that the DeepSeek online service sending data to its home country may set "the stage for greater scrutiny".[44]
The United States Navy instructed all its members not to use DeepSeek.[49] On 31 January 2025, Taiwan's digital ministry advised its government departments against using the DeepSeek service to "prevent information security risks".[47] On the same day, Texas governor Greg Abbott issued a state ban on government-issued devices for DeepSeek, along with Xiaohongshu and Lemon8.[50]
Access to DeepSeek has been banned on the New South Wales Department of Customer Service's devices.[51] Australia and South Korea banned Deepseek from government devices.[52][53]
