Chinese AI Company 'DeepSeek' App Tops US App Store Downloads... Impact on Stock Market

DeepSeek-R1 Inference AI Model Launched
DeepSeek-Related Stocks Surge in Asia
Tech Stocks Weaken in the US

China's AI startup DeepSeek's AI assistant application has surpassed ChatGPT to become the number one downloaded app on the US Apple App Store.

DeepSeek's surge has sent shockwaves through the stock market, with US tech stocks including Nvidia falling, while DeepSeek-related stocks have soared in Asian markets such as China.

According to a Bloomberg report on the 27th, DeepSeek's AI assistant ranked first in the US Apple App Store's free app download chart, pushing OpenAI's ChatGPT to second place. This came just one week after DeepSeek launched its inference AI model, the DeepSeek-R1 series, on the 20th.

The DeepSeek-R1, an advancement of the previously released DeepSeek-V3, outperformed OpenAI's inference AI model 'o1', launched in September last year, in some performance tests, surprising the global AI industry including Silicon Valley.

The exact development cost of this model has not been disclosed, but it is estimated to be much lower compared to the latest AI models from major IT companies like OpenAI and Meta, which invested huge development budgets.

DeepSeek revealed that its DeepSeek-V3, launched at the end of last month, used low-spec chips specially made by Nvidia to avoid US export restrictions against China, and that the training cost was under $6 million, about one-tenth of the cost used by major US IT companies like Meta for their latest AI model training.

The fact that DeepSeek, a small startup headquartered in Hangzhou, China, created an AI model with performance comparable to big tech at a low cost despite US export restrictions has sent a significant shock throughout the industry.

Bloomberg noted that DeepSeek's AI assistant reaching number one on the US App Store "raised doubts about America's capabilities as a leader in AI, centered in Silicon Valley."

The shockwave from DeepSeek's surge also spread to the stock markets. On the same day, Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, and Japanese stock markets saw Chinese tech companies linked to DeepSeek's business model rise sharply.

Conversely, in Western stock markets including the US, concerns over American technological leadership and AI-related investments acted as negative factors. On the 24th, Nvidia, a leading AI chip company, closed down over 3%, and Nasdaq futures also declined during Asian trading hours on the 27th.

On the same day in the Japanese stock market, SoftBank, a major participant in the AI infrastructure project announced by US President Donald Trump, plunged more than 8%. In European markets, Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML plunged 9.4% in early trading that day.