Chinese startup Deepseek announced that it will temporarily limit registrations due to a cyberattack triggered by the sudden popularity of its AI assistant. The news was reported by Reuters.
On the same day, Deepseek’s website experienced a server outage. The issue arose after its AI assistant emerged as the top-rated free app in the U.S. on Apple’s App Store.
The startup stated that it has resolved login issues related to its application programming interface and website. Monday’s outage was the longest in the past 90 days and coincided with the surge in the app’s popularity.
Last week, Deepseek launched a free AI assistant that reportedly uses less data and incurs lower costs compared to traditional competitor models. The company claims that this represents a new paradigm in the need for investment in the AI sector.
Powered by the Deepseek-V3 model, the AI application is described by its developers as “the best among open-source models,” capable of competing with cutting-edge closed-source models globally. Since its debut on January 10, the app has gained significant traction in the U.S., according to app data research firm Sensor Tower.
Deepseek’s success has created ripples in Silicon Valley, challenging the conventional notion of U.S. dominance in AI and raising questions about the efficacy of Washington’s export restrictions on China’s AI capabilities.
AI models like ChatGPT and Deepseek require advanced chips for training. However, since 2021, the Biden administration has imposed restrictions on the export of such chips to China.
Despite these limitations, Deepseek researchers claimed in a recent paper that the Deepseek-V3 model was trained using Nvidia’s H800 chips at a cost of less than $6 million. While the claim remains controversial, the use of relatively less powerful chips and lower costs has prompted U.S. tech executives to reconsider the effectiveness of the export bans.
Founded in 2023 and based in Hangzhou, little is known about the small startup Deepseek. Since Chinese search engine giant Baidu became the first to launch a Chinese AI large language model, several Chinese companies have introduced their own AI models. However, Deepseek is the first to earn high praise from the U.S. tech industry and demonstrate the ability to compete with advanced American models.
