DeepSeek has taken the App Store by storm, unexpectedly rising to the top of the free apps list in the US. In a symbolic shake-up, it has unseated OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which previously held the number one spot.
But it’s not just the US—DeepSeek is now the #1 free app in 51 countries. It has also secured a spot in the Top 10 free apps in 111 countries on the App Store and 18 countries on Google Play, proving its rapid global appeal.
DeepSeek Tops in all App Store!
DeepSeek is a newcomer, having only been founded in 2023, but it has already made waves with several AI models. The real game-changer, though, is its latest release—DeepSeek R1.
Despite using just, a fraction of the resources compared to its Western rivals, DeepSeek R1 is reportedly on par with some of the best AI models. That’s what’s turning heads and fueling its rapid rise.
The stock market is feeling the shockwaves, with Nvidia plunging around 17%—wiping out nearly $600 billion in market value. It’s the biggest single-day loss ever for a U.S. company, and investors are scrambling to make sense of the shake-up.
This also complicates the U.S. effort to limit China’s access to advanced AI hardware. DeepSeek trained its model on Nvidia’s H800 chips—a downgraded version of the H100 designed to comply with export restrictions. Yet, through smart AI training techniques, the company still managed to achieve top-tier performance with supposedly weaker hardware.
DeepSeek hasn’t had an easy ride, either. The company says it’s been targeted by a digital attack, specifically a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack, and as a result, it’s limited new sign-ups to users with Chinese phone numbers. However, existing users can still access the app without issue.
This has to be raising concerns for the tech giants in Cupertino, Mountain View, and Redmond. Apple is still rolling out Apple Intelligence, while Google has already integrated its Gemini model into many of its products, and Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, is all in on AI. The rise of DeepSeek is shaking up the AI landscape in ways they can’t ignore.
