Deepseek, the Chinese AI app that landed at the top

Deepseek, a Chinese-made artificial intelligence (AI) model has shot to the top of Apple Store's downloads, stunning investors and sinking some tech stocks.

DeepSeek stands out due to the company's assertion that it was developed at a significantly lower cost compared to industry frontrunners like OpenAI, as it relies on fewer advanced chips.

This revelation led chip manufacturer Nvidia to experience a staggering loss of nearly $600 billion (£482 billion) in market value on Monday—the largest one-day decline in US market history.

Moreover, DeepSeek prompts scrutiny of Washington's measures to curtail Beijing's ambition for technological dominance, especially since a major aspect of these efforts involves restricting the export of advanced chips to China.

In response, Beijing has intensified its focus, with President Xi Jinping designating AI as a key priority. Start-ups like DeepSeek are essential as China shifts its focus from traditional industries, such as textiles and furniture, to advanced technologies, including chips, electric vehicles, and AI.

DeepSeek is a free AI-powered chatbot that closely resembles the look, feel, and functionality of ChatGPT.

It can be utilised for many similar applications, although its effectiveness compared to competitors is open to discussion.

Reports suggest it matches the capabilities of OpenAI's o1 model, released late last year, in areas such as mathematics and coding.

Similar to o1, R1 is a "reasoning" model, generating responses progressively and mimicking the way humans reason through challenges or concepts. It consumes less memory than its competitors, resulting in reduced operational costs for its tasks.

Some people expressed their reservations about the Chinese company and its handling of users' data.