In today's fast-paced tech world, staying ahead means constantly adapting to new tools and ideas that enhance how we process information. One exciting development is DeepSeek, a technology that has the potential to change how we manage and interact with data. This post examines what DeepSeek is, how it works, and its potential effects on technology in the United States.
The Chinese startup DeepSeek released its flagship AI model R1 on January 20, surprising Silicon Valley with the model's advanced capabilities. R1 matched or surpassed the functionality of AI released by OpenAI, Google, and Meta — on a much smaller budget and without the latest AI chips.
Over the past week, the DeepSeek app has proven popular with the public. It surged past ChatGPT in popularity, reaching No. 1 on the U.S. Apple app store and within the top free Android apps on the Google Play Store at the time of publication.
DeepSeek's R1 release has prompted questions about whether the billions of dollars of AI spending in the past few years was worth it — and challenged the notion that the U.S. is the world's leader in AI, per BBC. DeepSeek's AI arrives as the U.S. looks to ramp up spending on AI. Last week, President Donald Trump announced a joint project with OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank called Stargate that commits up to $500 billion over the next four years to data centers and other AI infrastructure.
What is DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI startup that creates open AI models—so any developer can access and build on the technology.
DeepSeek is different from ChatGPT because it states its chain-of-thought reasoning before giving a response to a prompt. Apple App Store and Google Play Store reviews praised that level of transparency, per Bloomberg.
It is free to download and use, though it does require users to sign up before they can access the AI.
Why is DeepSeek so popular?
DeepSeek is free and offers top-of-the-line performance. Last week, the scientific journal Nature published an article titled, "China's cheap, open AI model DeepSeek thrills scientists." The article showed that R1's performances on certain chemistry, math, and coding tasks were on par with one of OpenAI's most advanced AI models, the o1 model OpenAI released in September.
In addition to high performance, R1 is open-weight, so researchers can study, reuse, and build on it. It isn't considered fully open source because DeepSeek hasn't made its training data public.
The AI model has also received stellar reviews. Investor Marc Andreessen called it "one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs" he had "ever seen" in a Friday post on X while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called it "super impressive" at last week's World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
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