What is DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) chatbot which went viral in early 2025 for its high performance at an astonishingly low cost.
Its boom captured headlines globally and sent shockwaves through the tech and financial markets.
The software is open source, which means it can be accessed and improved by anyone.
It is also said that the AI model was created for only £4.8 million, compared to OpenAI’s costs of around £80 million.
When was DeepSeek released?
The DeepSeek app was released on January 10, 2025 — the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US President.
By the end of the month, it surpassed ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app for iPhone users in the US.
In a published research paper, developers of the AI system also claimed that the technology relies on much fewer specialised computer chips than its US competitors.
This was in response to President Trump’s plans to impose high tariffs on microchips.
This all resulted in shares plummeting for many US tech giants, including Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet.
Ivan Feinseth, a market analyst at Tigress Financial, described DeepSeek as “the first shot at what is emerging as a global AI space race.”
Who owns DeepSeek?
The AI chatbot was developed by Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co., which is a Chinese company.
It was founded in July 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, the chief of AI-driven quant hedge fund High-Flyer.
Wenfeng was initially a businessman who used AI to spot trading patterns in share prices to make profit. His hedge fund is now worth $8 billion.
What can DeepSeek do?
The service is similar to any other popular GenAI chatbots such as Google Gemini or Microsoft Copilot.
You ask a question, and the AI model generates a relevant answer for you within seconds.
It can also solve logic problems and even write computer code.
What fans of DeepSeek particularly enjoy is the fact that it breaks down the AI’s thought process clearly, unlike most competitors.
This makes fact-checking much easier, as it is easy to see how the chatbot came to its conclusion.
Can DeepSeek generate images?
While the primary chat interface is focused on text, DeepSeek has developed a separate line of models for image generation and understanding called Janus.
Launched in February, Janus-Pro aims to outperform US rivals like DALL-E in areas such as image quality and accuracy.
However, when tested in practice, the results were not satisfactory.
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Why is DeepSeek often slow?
DeepSeek servers are often busy due to high user traffic, causing overload and delays, especially during peak hours.
Users, therefore, often see an error message: “The server is busy. Please try again later.”
This can also be caused by scheduled maintenance or network problems.
The general recommendation is coming back at a less popular time.
However, there are more reasons behind the “sluggishness” that some users complain about online.
In order to slash costs, DeepSeek is designed differently from other popular AI chatbots.
While ChatGPT runs on a traditional transformer architecture, its Chinese rival uses a Mixture of Experts (MoE) design, engaging only a relevant subset of parameters for each query.
For users accessing the service from different parts of the world, the physical distance data needs to travel from China can also result in network latency.
Thanks to significantly larger financial resources, tech giants like Google or Microsoft have a globally distributed server infrastructure, reducing this latency to minimum.
Is DeepSeek biased?
Within days of its release, users noticed that some of the information DeepSeek gives is biased towards making the Chinese communist state look good.
In some cases, the chatbot refuses to give answers on sensitive issues such as the Tiananmen Square massacre, Taiwan or forced labour.
While the AI model is happy to criticise Donald Trump or Elon Musk, unflattering comments on Chinese president Xi Jinping are “beyond its current scope”.
However, if you move on from these specific themes, DeepSeek is able to provide accurate and up-to-date information on most topics, including recent news thanks to its web search capabilities.
Is DeepSeek safe to use?
Due to its origins, fears are mounting about how the AI chatbot may be harvesting data for the Chinese state.
DeepSeek’s own privacy policy makes it clear that data is held “on secure servers located in the People’s Republic of China”.
That means any data inputted into the model will be sent to China, where it will be subject to Chinese law, posing privacy risks.
Some experts highlighted that it was likely the data would be shared with the Chinese government, given that the chatbot already obeys strict censorship.
In February, Ivan Tsarynny, CEO of Feroot Security, told ABC News that Deepseek’s code that is sending some user login information to state-owned telecoms company China Mobiles.
DeepSeek creates a ‘digital fingerprint’ of each user, according to Tsarynny, which can be used to track their activity across any other website where China Mobile, or the Chinese government, are able to collect information.
The US had previously put sanctions on the firm, claiming it has close ties to the Chinese military.
UK Government has issued a warning to citizens and businesses, advising them to be careful when using DeepSeek.
The advice is not to share any sensitive personal information with the chatbot, which applies to any AI model.
Why was DeepSeek banned in some countires?
Several countries across the world have raised concerns about DeepSeek in relation to privacy and data security .
On 30 January, Italy’s data protection authority ordered DeepSeek to block its chatbot in the country after the company failed to address the regulator’s worries over its privacy policy.
Other countries have banned the AI model on government devices for cybersecurity.
This includes the US, Canada, Czech Republic, Australia, India and South Korea.
Is DeepSeek banned in the UK?
British government decided against banning DeepSeek in the UK, as it is a “personal choice” of each user.
However, some civil servants and contractors working for the state are not allowed to access the AI model on their work devices.
Is DeepSeek free?
The app is free to download on Google Play or App Store, and there is no subscription fee to continue using the app.
This free plan has no limitations in terms of the number of user queries, unlike some competitors.
Developers and businesses can also access DeepSeek’s application programming interface (API), which is priced roughly at $0.55 per million input tokens and $2.19 per million output tokens.
Is DeepSeek better than ChatGPT?
The latest model, DeepSeek-V3, has demonstrated solid performance in some complex tasks such as coding and mathematics, sometimes even beating ChatGPT.
Its free and open-source philosophy also makes it attractive to developers and other users who want deep customisation and cost-effective power.
However, some have reported that DeepSeek’s performance fluctuates, and combined with frequent outages, it may not make it the most reliable resource.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, offers a more polished and stable experience, including text, images and voice generation, all in one package.
A critical point lies in how AI companies handle data privacy and security, which puts DeepSeek behind its competitors.
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As an open-source model, though, it can be self-hosted, which allows maximum privacy with some technical expertise.
OpenAI does not allow that, and its premium plans are significantly more expensive than DeepSeek’s API.