Chinese AI app DeepSeek tops Apple’s US chart

A new Chinese AI assistant named DeepSeek has quickly become a significant competitor to other chatbot apps like ChatGPT, surpassing them to become the number one free app on Apple’s US app store as of Monday morning, according to Reuters. Developed by a relatively unknown and small startup with just $6 million of hardware investment, a fraction of competitors’ budgets, DeepSeek offers its services for free while allegedly matching the capabilities of paid models. Its creation stems from the efforts of young talents from top Chinese universities and is a response to US export restrictions on microchips from Nvidia. This release coincides with US President Donald Trump’s launch of the Stargate project with a budget of 500 billion kroner aimed at developing new AI infrastructure to ensure American leadership in AI.