The Chinese AI app DeepSeek has surged in popularity, topping the Apple App Store’s free app download rankings in both the U.S. and China, surpassing ChatGPT in the U.S. This rise has disrupted the tech market, leading to a fall in U.S. stock index futures during early Asia trading on Monday. As of 10:12 a.m. Hong Kong time, S&P 500 futures dropped 1%, while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1.9%.
Top US App DeepSeek Causes Stock Index Fall
Over the weekend, reports surfaced about DeepSeek’s use of lower-performance chips at reduced costs, raising questions about the dominance of U.S. tech companies like Nvidia. In response to DeepSeek’s growing influence, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sought to recapture attention by increasing ChatGPT Plus members’ daily query limits to 100.
The Apple App Store’s top free app, DeepSeek recently launched two large models, DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1, known for their cost efficiency and performance rivaling OpenAI. Its open-source model, DeepSeek-R1, ranks third in Chatbot Arena’s comprehensive list, standing alongside OpenAI’s top inference models. The app’s low-cost model, priced at 0.1 RMB per million tokens, has drawn the attention of tech giants, including Meta.
Meta’s Chief AI Scientist, Yann LeCun, praised DeepSeek for its open-source approach, stating, “The success of DeepSeek highlights the power of open research and open-source innovation.”
Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz also applauded the app.
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