DeepSeek Surpasses ChatGPT, Tops App Stores in China and the US

DeepSeek has taken the AI world by storm, rapidly climbing to the top of both the Chinese and US Apple App Store rankings.

On January 27, DeepSeek claimed the #1 spot on China’s App Store free downloads list. Simultaneously, it surged from sixth to first place in the US, surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s social platform Threads, and AI products from tech giants like Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.

This marks the first time a Chinese AI app has simultaneously topped the free download charts in both China and the US. While apps like Xiaohongshu (China’s Instagram-like platform) and Temu (a budget shopping app) have previously led US downloads, they never held the top position in both countries at the same time.

DeepSeek’s Meteoric Rise and Temporary Outage

Just before hitting this milestone, DeepSeek experienced a brief service disruption. The company attributed the issue to a sudden spike in traffic following a new model release, temporarily overwhelming its servers. However, DeepSeek quickly restored service within minutes.

The application is developed by DeepSeek, a leading AI research company backed by High-Flyer Quant, one of China’s largest quantitative trading firms. Its flagship model, DeepSeek-R1, has gained widespread recognition for its impressive performance and cost efficiency.

A Powerful Open-Source Challenger to GPT-4o

DeepSeek-R1, an open-source model, delivers competitive performance in math, coding, and natural language reasoning—coming close to OpenAI’s GPT-4o. However, it was trained at just one-tenth of GPT-4o’s cost, approximately $5.576 million. The model’s reinforcement learning-driven training approach has been praised as a breakthrough, earning accolades from NVIDIA scientist Jim Fan.

DeepSeek has also won over the global developer community with its free commercial use policy and support for derivative development. It ranks among the top models on evaluation platforms like Chatbot Arena.

A Milestone for Chinese AI on the Global Stage

DeepSeek’s success signals a major breakthrough for Chinese AI in international markets. Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360 Technology, described the achievement as “simply amazing.” For the first time, a Chinese AI product has outpaced American rivals like ChatGPT in mainstream overseas markets.

This moment also challenges the traditional assumption that only companies with massive financial backing can dominate AI. DeepSeek’s rise could inspire greater confidence in China’s AI sector and attract more capital to domestic AI innovations. Its open-source strategy, which includes the release of six smaller models, is expected to foster collaboration within China’s AI developer community.

DeepSeek’s Disruptive Impact on US Tech Giants

DeepSeek’s low-cost, high-efficiency model has caught the attention of major US tech firms. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Meta engineers, in anonymous online discussions, acknowledged that DeepSeek’s success is forcing American companies to rethink their AI strategies. Reports suggest that Meta is urgently attempting to reverse-engineer DeepSeek’s technology. This could push US AI firms toward adopting more open and collaborative development models.

Challenges Ahead: Can DeepSeek Maintain Its Lead?

Despite its rapid ascent, DeepSeek now faces significant challenges. Geopolitical tensions, technological advancements, and business sustainability will all play a role in determining its long-term success. Once the initial excitement subsides, the key question remains: Can DeepSeek maintain its momentum and withstand competition from all sides?