Top US App DeepSeek Causes Stock Index Fall

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

Chinese AI App DeepSeek Surges in Popularity, Tops US App Store Free App Download Rankings

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI app, has surged in popularity, topping the Apple App Store's free app download rankings in both the U.S. and China. 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%.

Reports Surfaced About DeepSeek's Use of Lower-Performance Chips at Reduced Costs

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 (NASDAQ:NVDA). DeepSeek is said to be able to achieve a language model performance close to that of OpenAI's models at a fraction of the cost.

In response to DeepSeek's growing influence, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to Twitter on Sunday to announce a change for ChatGPT Plus members. Starting Monday, their daily query limits will be increased to 100, up from the previous limit of 20 queries per day.

DeepSeek Launches 2 Large Models, Priced at 0.1 RMB Per Million Tokens

The Apple App Store's top free app, DeepSeek recently launched two large models, DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1, which are known for their cost efficiency and performance that rivals OpenAI's models.

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.

Meta's Chief AI Scientist Praises DeepSeek for Its Open-Source Approach

Among those who have commented on DeepSeek's success is Meta (NASDAQ:META) Platforms Inc.'s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun.

Highlighting DeepSeek's open-source nature, LeCun tweeted on Sunday, “The success of DeepSeek highlights the power of open research and open-source innovation.”

Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz also applauded the app, writing on Twitter, “Deepseek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I've ever seen — and as open source, a profound gift to the world.”