DEEPSEEK !

DeepSeek is the name of a free AI-powered chatbot, which looks, feels and works very much like ChatGPT.

That means it's used for many of the same tasks, though exactly how well it works compared to its rivals is up for debate.

It is reportedly as powerful as OpenAI's o1 model - released at the end of last year - in tasks including mathematics and coding.

Like o1, R1 is a "reasoning" model. These models produce responses incrementally, simulating how humans reason through problems or ideas.

Deepseek says it has been able to do this cheaply - researchers behind it claim it cost $6m (￡4.8m) to train, a fraction of the "over $100m" alluded to by OpenAI boss Sam Altman when discussing GPT-4.

It has also seemingly be able to minimise the impact of US restrictions on the most powerful chips reaching China.

DeepSeek's founder reportedly built up a store of Nvidia A100 chips, which have been banned from export to China since September 2022. Some experts believe he paired these chips with cheaper, less sophisticated ones - ending up with a much more efficient process.

DeepSeek also uses less memory than its rivals, ultimately reducing the cost to perform tasks for users.

That combination of performance and lower cost helped DeepSeek's AI assistant become the most-downloaded free app on Apple's App Store when it was released in the US.

The same day, it was hit with "large-scale malicious attacks", the company said, causing the company to temporary limit registrations.

Its website also experienced outages.

Like many other Chinese AI models - Baidu's Ernie or Doubao by ByteDance - DeepSeek is trained to avoid politically sensitive questions.

When the BBC asked the app what happened at Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989, Deep Seek did not give any details about the massacre, a taboo topic in China, which is subject to government censorship.

Who is behind Deep Seek?

Deep Seek was founded in December 2023 by Liang Wen feng, and released its first AI large language model the following year.

Not much is known about Mr Liang, who graduated from Zhejiang University with degrees in electronic information engineering and computer science. But he now finds himself in the international spotlight.

He was recently seen at a meeting hosted by China's premier Li Qiang, reflecting DeepSeek's growing prominence in the AI industry.

Unlike many American AI entrepreneurs who are from Silicon Valley, Mr Liang also has a background in finance.

He is the CEO of a hedge fund called High-Flyer, which uses AI to analyse financial data to make investment decisions - what is called quantitative trading. In 2019 High-Flyer became the first quant hedge fund in China to raise over 100 billion yuan ($13m).

In a speech he gave that year, Liang said, "If the US can develop its quantitative trading sector, why not China?"

In a rare interview last year, he said China's AI sector "cannot remain a follower forever" of US AI development.

Asked why DeepSeek's model surprised so many in Silicon Valley, Liang said: "Their surprise stems from seeing a Chinese company join their game as an innovator, not just a follower - which is what most Chinese firms are accustomed to."

But it has drawn scrutiny from global leaders.

Australia has banned DeepSeek on government devices and systems, saying it poses a national security risk.

Several data protection authorities around the world have also asked DeepSeek to clarify how it handles personal information - which it stores on China-based servers.

Italy blocked DeepSeek's app on 30 January and ordered the company to stop processing the personal information of its citizens over data protection concerns.

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