The DeepSeek-R1 model provides responses comparable to other contemporary large language models, such as OpenAI‘s GPT-4o and o1. It is trained at a significantly lower cost—stated at US$6 million compared to $100 million for OpenAI’s GPT-4 in 2023—and requires a tenth of the computing power of a comparable LLM. DeepSeek’s A.I. models were developed amid United States sanctions on China for Nvidia chips, which were intended to restrict the ability of the two countries to develop advanced A.I. systems.
On 10 January 2025, DeepSeek released its first free chatbot app, 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, causing Nvidia’s share price to drop by 18%. DeepSeek’s success against larger and more established rivals has been described as “upending AI”, constituting “the first shot at what is emerging as a global AI space race”, and ushering in “a new era of A.I. brinkmanship“.
DeepSeek makes its generative artificial intelligence algorithms, models, and training details open-source, allowing its code to be freely available for use, modification, viewing, and designing documents for building purposes. The company reportedly vigorously recruits young A.I. researchers from top Chinese universities, and hires from outside the computer science field to diversify its models’ knowledge and abilities.
