DeepSeek, the latest entrant in the artificial intelligence (AI) space, has become the most downloaded app on Apple’s App Store in the US, sparking anxiety across Silicon Valley with its meteoric rise. The app is already being compared to those of industry giants like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft. Hours after the app topped the App Store listing, beating OpenAI’s ChatGPT Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas congratulated.
In a post on microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter), Srinivas wrote “Congrats to @deepseek_ai for getting to #1 on the App Store. For a while, it wasn’t clear who would beat ChatGPT for the first time. The best we could manage was #8, a year ago. Look forward to using all their models for search, assistant, and agents this year.”
In the post, he also shared screenshots of the App Store listing, showing DeepSeek – AI Assistant as #1 app.
What is DeepSeek
DeepSeek R1 is a cutting-edge large language model designed to elevate reasoning and analytical capabilities. It has been developed by Hangzhou-based startup DeepSeek and features a hybrid architecture combining reinforcement learning with chain-of-thought reasoning for advanced performance. The model comes in two versions: DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-R1-Zero. The latter offers unsupervised fine-tuning, enabling even more refined reasoning abilities.
According to a report in NewYork Times, DeepSeek’s engineers reported using significantly fewer specialized computer chips, crucial components in AI training, than their American counterparts. These chips are central to the technological competition between the U.S. and China, with the U.S. imposing export restrictions to maintain its AI leadership. However, DeepSeek’s success highlights potential unintended consequences of these restrictions, as Chinese researchers have been driven to innovate with readily available resources.
