Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek Overtakes ChatGPT on Apple App Store

ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration taken, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration taken, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek Overtakes ChatGPT on Apple App Store

ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration taken, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
ChatGPT logo is seen in this illustration taken, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Chinese startup DeepSeek's AI Assistant on Monday overtook rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple's App Store in the United States.

Powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model, which its creators say "tops the leaderboard among open-source models and rivals the most advanced closed-source models globally", the artificial intelligence application has surged in popularity among US users since it was released on Jan. 10, according to app data research firm Sensor Tower.

The milestone highlights how DeepSeek has left a deep impression on Silicon Valley, upending widely held views about US primacy in AI and the effectiveness of Washington's export controls targeting China's advanced chip and AI capabilities, Reuters reported.

AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek require advanced chips to power their training. The Biden administration has since 2021 widened the scope of bans designed to stop these chips from being exported to China and used to train Chinese firms' AI models.

However, DeepSeek researchers wrote in a paper last month that the DeepSeek-V3 used Nvidia's H800 chips for training, spending less than $6 million.

Although this detail has since been disputed, the claim that the chips used were less powerful than the most advanced Nvidia products Washington has sought to keep out of China, as well as the relatively cheap training costs, has prompted US tech executives to question the effectiveness of tech export controls.

Little is known about the company behind DeepSeek, a small Hangzhou-based startup founded in 2023, when search engine giant Baidu released the first Chinese AI large-language model.

Since then, dozens of Chinese tech companies large and small have released their own AI models, but DeepSeek is the first to be praised by the US tech industry as matching or even surpassing the performance of cutting-edge US models.



Musk Launches ‘Scary Smart’ AI Chatbot 

The xAI Grok logo is seen in this illustration taken, February 16, 2025. (Reuters)
The xAI Grok logo is seen in this illustration taken, February 16, 2025. (Reuters)
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Musk Launches ‘Scary Smart’ AI Chatbot 

The xAI Grok logo is seen in this illustration taken, February 16, 2025. (Reuters)
The xAI Grok logo is seen in this illustration taken, February 16, 2025. (Reuters)

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company unveiled on Monday the latest version of its chatbot, Grok 3, which the billionaire hopes will find traction in a highly competitive sector contested by the likes of ChatGPT and China's DeepSeek.

The launch comes as the world's richest man is deploying the enormous powers granted him by US President Donald Trump to restructure and dismantle federal agencies.

The unprecedented cost-cutting drive has raised conflict-of-interest questions, given that many of those agencies have regulatory oversight on elements of Musk's sprawling business empire.

"Grok is to understand the universe," Musk said at the start of the Grok 3 launch presentation.

"We're driven by curiosity about the nature of the universe -- that's also what causes us to be a maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct."

Musk has promoted Grok 3 as "scary smart," with 10 times the computational resources of its predecessor that was released in August last year.

The flagship product of his xAI company was trained on synthetic data and employs self-correction mechanisms that avoid errors -- known as "hallucinations" -- that plague some AI chatbots and lead them to process false or misleading data as fact.

"Grok 3 has very powerful reasoning capabilities, so in the tests that we've done thus far, Grok 3 is outperforming anything that's been released, that we're aware of, so that's a good sign," Musk said in a video call last week with the World Governments Summit in Dubai.

Grok 3 will be made available first to Premium+ paid subscribers of X -- formerly Twitter, which Musk acquired in 2022 -- before rolling out to other users.

The upgraded chatbot enters a crowded field with countries racing to introduce more sophisticated -- and cost-effective -- AI products.

Chinese startup DeepSeek shocked the global AI industry last month with the launch of its low-cost, high-quality R1 chatbot -- a direct challenge to US ambitions to lead the world in developing the technology.

Grok 3 is also going up against OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT - pitting Musk against collaborator-turned-arch rival Sam Altman.

Musk and Altman were among the 11-person team that founded OpenAI in 2015. Created as a counterweight to Google's dominance in artificial intelligence, the project got its initial funding from Musk, who invested $45 million to get it started.

Musk left three years later, and then in 2022 OpenAI's release of ChatGPT created a global technology sensation -- one that did not feature Musk at its center and which made Altman a star.

Their relationship has become increasingly toxic and litigious ever since, with Open AI's board last week rejecting a Musk-led offer to buy out the company for close to $100 billion.

- Trump and tech -

Trump has put technology front and center of his new administration. Tech billionaires featured prominently at his inauguration and he has announced a number of major AI infrastructure initiatives from the White House.

Musk has become a key figure in the administration, as one of Trump's closest advisers and the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has begun a radical overhaul of the US government bureaucracy.

Critics warn that Musk's proximity to the president poses a major conflict of interest as he guides Trump on laws and regulations around artificial intelligence -- just one sector in which he has a substantial commercial stake.

According to Bloomberg, xAI has been canvassing potential investors for a roughly $10 billion funding round that would value the company at about $75 billion.

Musk, who also acts as boss of SpaceX and Tesla, launched the xAI company in July 2023, shortly after he signed an open letter calling for a pause in the development of powerful AI models.