- Following the release of the R1 AI model, the Chinese app DeepSeek has achieved the #1 position on the US App Store.
- DeepSeek R1 matches and even surpasses OpenAI's o1 reasoning model at just 3% of the training cost.
- DeepSeek's remarkable success has hit the US tech stock market, amid concerns over high-priced AI infrastructure and training cost.
DeepSeek, the Chinese AI pioneer, has surpassed ChatGPT and taken the top position on the Apple App Store. This comes after DeepSeek released its latest breakthrough, the R1 model that matches or even surpasses OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model in major benchmarks. In the US, DeepSeek is currently the #1 app in the ‘Top Free Apps’ category while ChatGPT is in third place.
This development is significant because DeepSeek, backed by High-Flyer, a China-based Quant fund, managed to train the R1 model for just $5.58 million — just 3% of what OpenAI spent to train its o1 model. It goes on to show that DeepSeek has highly optimized the model architecture to reduce the training and operating costs.
Unlike ChatGPT which serves the smaller GPT-4o mini model for free, DeepSeek is offering its most capable R1 model for free, which is equivalent to OpenAI’s o1 model that costs $20 per month. Reacting to the development, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted that the upcoming o3-mini model will be available to free users as well.
DeepSeek’s remarkable success has also impacted the US tech stock market. Nasdaq Futures declined by 400 points this morning amid concerns that US tech leadership in AI might be disrupted by China. Nvidia (NVDA) is down by 3.12%, reflecting apprehension over high-priced hardware for AI training and inference.
You can download DeepSeek on your smartphone (Android / iOS) and use it for free. On the web, you can chat with the R1 model at chat.deepseek.com. Bear in mind that users get 50 free messages per day for the DeepThink (R1) model, and you also have the option to search the web.
