Well, that was fast.
Just a few days after China's AI startup DeepSeek launched its latest reasoning model, DeepSeek R1, the company's iOS app surged to the top of Apple's App Store, leaving OpenAI's ChatGPT in second place.
That was quick. Credit: Sensor Tower DeepSeek claims that it DeepSeek R1 beats competing AI models in several key benchmarks. In my testing, it definitely held its own, helping me design a web project in minutes and helping me improve my chess skills.
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But what truly propelled DeepSeek's popularity is the fact that it's open source, as well as its pricing. DeepSeek is free to use on the web and as a smartphone app, and the company charges a lot less for API access than OpenAI does for its most advanced reasoning AI model. Numerous threads on social networks popped up over the weekend with examples of people running DeepSeek on fairly modest hardware or using it to perform complex tasks.
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The result? DeepSeek is now the top app on Apple's App Store, and the 20th most popular app on Google Play.
The launch and sudden popularity of DeepSeek could also impact the U.S. stock market, where Nvidia currently reigns supreme as the largest company by market cap. There are indications that DeepSeek has been built and trained for far less than competing U.S.-based models such as Meta's Llama and OpenAI's ChatGPT models. This, in turn, could mean a weaker demand for Nvidia hardware, which is commonly used for high-end AI applications. Currently, tech stock index NASDAQ's futures are down 3.2 percent ahead of market open on Monday.
