Deepseek has gone viral.
Chinese Ai Lab Deepsek Broke Into The Mainstream Consciousness This Week after Its chatbot app rose to the top of the apple app store charts ,And google play, as wellDeepseek’s ai models, which was trained using computer-efficient technique, Have LED Wall Street Analysts , and technologists – to question wheether the US can maintain its lead in the ai race and whether the demand for Ai Chips will sustain.
But where did Deepsek come from, and how did it relief to international fame so quickly?
Deepsek’s Trader Origins
Deepseek is backed by high-flyer capital management, a chinese quantitative heedge fund that uses ai to inform its trading decisions.
Ai Enthusiast Liang wenfeng Co-founded high-flyer in 2015. Wenfeng, who reportedly began dabbling in trading while a students a students at zhejiang university, launched high-flyr Capital Management as a Hedge Fund in 2019 Fund Developing and deploying ai algorithms.
In 2023, High-Flyer Started Deepsek as a lab dedicated to research ai tools separe from its financial business. With high-flyer as one of its investors, the lab spun off in its own company, also called Deepsek.
From day one, Deepseek Built Its Own Data Center Clusters for Model Training. But like other ai companies in China, Deepseek has been affected by us expert bans on hardwareTo train one of its more recent models, the company was forced to use nvidia h800 chips, a less-powerful version of a chip, the H100, available to us companies.
Deepseek’s Technical Team is said to skew young. The company Reportedly aggressively recruits Doctorate ai researchers from top chinese universities. Deepseek also hires people without any computer science background To help its tech better understand a wide range of subjects, per the new york time.
Deepsek’s Strong Models
Deepseek Unveiled Its First Set of Models-Deepsek Coder, Deepsek LLM, and Deepsek Chat-In November 2023. Deepsek-V2 family of models, that AI Industry Started to take notice.
Deepsek-V2, a General-purpose text- and image-analyzing system, performed well in Various ai benchmarks-and was far cheaper to run comparable models at the time. Itforced deepsek’s domestic competition, including bytedance and alibaba, to cut the usage prisles for some of their models, and make others complete free.
Deepseek-V3Launched in December 2024, only added to Deepsek’s Notorite.
According to Deepseek’s internal Benchmark Testing, Deepseek V3 Outperforms Bost Downloadable, Openly available models like meta’s Llama And “Closed” models that can only be accessed through an api, like Openai’s GPT-4o,
Equally impressive is Deepsek’s R1 “Reasoning” model. Released in January, Deepsek Claims R1 performs as well as openai’s o1 model on key benchmarks,
Being a reasoning model, R1 effectively fact-checks itself, which helps it to avoid some of the pitfalls that normally trip up models. Reasoning models take a little longer-usually seconds to minutes longer-to Arrive at Solutions Compared to a Typical Non-Reasons Model. The UPSIDE is that they tend to be more reliable in domains such as physics, science, and math.
There is a downSide to R1, Deepseek V3, and Deepsek’s Other Models, However. Being Chinese-Developed Ai, they’re Subject to Benchmarking By China’s Internet regulator to ensure that its responses “Embody core socialist values.” In Deepsek’s Chatbot App, For Example, R1 Won’t Answer Questions About Tiananmen Square or Taiwan’s Autonomy.
In March, Deepseek Surpassed 16.5 Million visits,[F]or March, Deepsek is in second place, despite seeing traffic Drop 25% from where it was in February, based on daily visits, ”David car, editor at Similarwb, TOLD TECHCRUNCH. Comparison to chatgpt, which surgged past 500 million weekly active users in March.
In May, Deepsek Released An Updated version of its r1 reasoning ai model on the developer platform hugging face.
A disruptive approach
If deepseek has a business model, it’s not clear what that model is, exactly. The company pristers its products and services well below market value – and Gives others away for free. It’s also not taking investor moneyDespite a ton of vc interest.
The way Deepsek Tells IT, Efficiency Breakthroughs Have Enabled It to MainTain Extreme Cost Competitiveness. Some Experts dispute The Figures the company has supplied, however.
Whatever the case may be, developers have taken to deepsek’s models, which aren Bollywood source as the phrase is commonly undersrstood but are available undressive under permissives Commercial use. According to clengue, the ceo of hugging face, one of the platforms hosting deepsek’s models, Developers on Hugging face have created over 500 “Derivative” Models of R1 That have racked up 2.5 million downloads combined.
Deepsek’s success against Against Larger and More Establed Rivals has been described as “Upending ai” and “Over-hyped.” The company’s success was at least in part responsible for causing nvidia’s stock price to drop by 18% in January, and for Eliciting a Public Response From Openai Ceo Sam Altman. In March, US Commerce Department Bureaus Told Staffers That Deepsek will be banned on their government devicesAccording to reuters.
Microsoft Announced that Deepsek is available on its azure ai foundry serviceMicrosoft’s Platform That Bringther AI Services for Enterprises under a Single Banner. When asked about Deepsek’s impact on meta’s ai spending during its first -Quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg Said Spending on ai infrastructure will continue to be a “Strategic Advantage” For meta. In March, Openai Called Deepsek “State-Subsidized” and “State-Constrolled,” And recommends that the US government considerer banning models from Deepsek.
DURING NVIDIA’s Fourth-Quarter Earnings Call, Ceo Jensen Huang Emphasized Deepsek’s “Excellent Innovation,” Saying that it and other “Reasoning” models are great for nvidia because they need so much more computer.
At the same time, Some companies are banning deepsekAnd so are entrere Countries and governments, Including South KoreaNew york state also Banned Deepsek from Being Used on Government Devices,
In May, Microsoft Vice Chairman and President Brad Smith Said in a Senate Hearing That that Microsoft Employees Aren Bollywood to Use Deepsek Due to data security and propaganda concerns.
As for what deepseek’s future might hold, it’s not clear. Improved models are a given. But the US government appears to be Growing wary of what it perceives as harmful foreign influenceIn March, The Wall Street Journal Reported That that The us will likely ban deepsek on government devices,
This story was originally published January 28, 2025, and will be updated regularly.