Imagine waking up one morning to find that a single artificial intelligence (AI) breakthrough has Wall Street scrambling, tech giants in panic mode, and the entire industry questioning what comes next. That’s exactly what’s happening with DeepSeek AI.
Even if you're not deep into AI or technology, you’ve probably seen the buzz around this mysterious Chinese innovation. But what makes DeepSeek so disruptive? And why is it sending shockwaves through companies like Nvidia, OpenAI, Meta, and Google?
This blog will walk you through everything you need to know about DeepSeek AI, especially the DeepSeek R1 model. We’ll explore:
DeepSeek is a Chinese startup founded by Liang Wenfeng, a Zhejiang University graduate, in May 2023. Based in Hangzhou, this AI development firm’s CEO, is also the co-founder of High-Flyer, a top Chinese hedge fund that uses AI and mathematics for efficient trading.
Interestingly, while DeepSeek operates as an independent AI research lab, it is currently owned by High-Flyer which was founded in 2015.
You might be wondering, "Where can I buy DeepSeek AI stocks?" The answer is that you cannot! DeepSeek is a privately held company, so its shares aren’t available on public stock exchanges for individual investors.
DeepSeek specializes in open-source large language models (LLMs) and advanced tools for reasoning, coding, and natural language processing. Since its 2023 launch, DeepSeek has introduced:
Within just 18 days, the DeepSeek AI assistant app became the most downloaded app on both Android and iPhone, amassing 16 million downloads, with India leading in new users.
Look, we’ve all seen how AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini have already transformed copywriting, ad creation, and audience insights, but DeepSeek is doing things differently.
Here’s why this AI is worth your attention:
DeepSeek isn’t just another AI chatbot, it’s an open-source, marketer-friendly AI. And the real question is: are you gonna use it before your competitors do?
✅ YES, if you:
❌ NO, if you:
We've seen how DeepSeek emerged from its early days and played around the US export restrictions on Nvidia chips, to the dramatic US stock market reaction following the launch of DeepSeek’s R1 model. But why is DeepSeek such a big deal? It’s not merely a Chinese company joining the AI race; DeepSeek is setting new standards in performance. Here's what DeepSeek AI (R1 model) does better than OpenAI's ChatGPT (o1 model):
✅ DeepSeek R1 → Trained for $5.6M
❌ ChatGPT (GPT-4) → Requires hundreds of millions
Marketer Impact → Lower-cost AI means budget-friendly content automation & analytics.
✅ DeepSeek → Open-source, customizable, and adaptable
❌ ChatGPT → Proprietary, with usage restrictions
Marketer Impact → Brands can tweak AI for industry-specific insights & messaging.
As a marketer, the launch of new AI tools and their usage can feel overwhelming at first. This comparison shows that your choice between DeepSeek and ChatGPT ultimately depends on what matters most to you. Keep in mind that both platforms are evolving, so these characteristics may change with new updates.
To summarize, here are the two key takeaways as a marketer:
The DeepSeek R1 model triggered a stock market shakeup, with Nvidia experiencing the biggest impact in its history.
To truly understand this market reaction, it's essential to look at DeepSeek's connection with Nvidia. The strong response to DeepSeek R1 shows how disruptive it is and how closely connected emerging AI startups are with major tech companies like Nvidia.
Nvidia is one of the most valuable tech companies, known for designing high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) used in AI, gaming, and data centers. Nvidia itself calls its chips the "Engine of AI."
By 2024, Nvidia became the world's most valuable company, hitting a $3.39 trillion market cap, surpassing global tech giants such as Apple and Microsoft.
The impact of DeepSeek's model on Nvidia runs deeper than we might think, and much of it is rooted in decisions made by the US government. Over the years, the US government has made some bold moves regarding Nvidia's chips, with trade restrictions that have left a mark on the company.
This tech war between the US and China has led to:
Moving forward, DeepSeek had to adapt quickly to market restrictions. Initially, the company built its AI systems using Nvidia’s high-performance A100 GPUs, amassing about 10,000 units by 2022. But once US export controls cut off access to these chips, DeepSeek switched to Nvidia’s H800 GPUs, which remained legally available in China. Even with these slower chips, DeepSeek smartly improved its models to keep performance high, showing that great AI research doesn’t always need the newest expensive hardware. Even though DeepSeek is confirmed to use the H800 chips in 2023, there are ongoing concerns and scrutiny over whether they might be accessing restricted components through alternative channels.
Business Insider even reported that “there’s a growing investigation into whether DeepSeek used banned Nvidia chips,” while Nvidia now faces political pressure as President Donald Trump is reportedly considering tightening restrictions on NVDA’s sales of its H20 chips for the China market. These developments suggest that what began as an innovative workaround may soon become a landmark case in the US-China tech rivalry.
DeepSeek swiftly adjusted to US export restrictions by optimizing its AI models and launching the DeepSeek R1 model, which has quickly become the AI winner of our times. This model is far superior and more cost-efficient than several AI competitors, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s LLaMA, and Google’s Gemini, advantages we’ll explore later.
A Chinese AI research firm successfully launching such a highly efficient AI chatbot without Nvidia’s most powerful chips was enough to shake the US market to its core. Until now, US tech giants enjoyed a sense of AI supremacy, but DeepSeek has challenged that narrative. Shortly after the launch of DeepSeek R1, its AI rival Nvidia experienced the biggest market loss in history, with shares plunging nearly 17% on Monday and cutting about $600 billion from the chipmaker’s market capitalization.
DeepSeek claimed it used just $5.6 million to train its LLM model, a small fraction compared to ChatGPT’s hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. Nvidia led a broad sell-off in US markets, as S&P 500 fell about 1.5% and the Nasdaq dropped 3.1%, while major tech players like Arm, Broadcom, and Oracle tumbled by at least 10%.
Here’s the twist: while Sam Altman, often hailed as the "AI King" once claimed it’s “hopeless to compete,” DeepSeek proved otherwise with its R1 model. The company says it built this game-changing AI in just two months, using under $6 million worth of GPUs, a tiny fraction of what rivals like OpenAI, Gemini, and Claude AI typically spend. It’s a clear sign that cutting-edge AI doesn’t have to cost a fortune, and it puts a dent in the big budgets of industry giants.
While praising DeepSeek’s cost-efficient R1 model as “impressive,” Sam Altman couldn’t resist a hint of arrogance, promising that OpenAI would “obviously deliver much better models.”
While industry giants and tech leaders are making bold statements about AI, it’s equally important to hear what everyday users are saying on social media. This is where advanced social listening and analysis tools come into play offering valuable insights into real user sentiment. To help you see these opinions firsthand, we at OneCliq compiled a detailed report analyzing millions of posts across Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Click here to read the full report providing deep qualitative and emotional analysis at the heart of what people are saying about DeepSeeks AI. .
DeepSeek distinguishes itself through its open-source model, offering a level of transparency and customization that proprietary services like ChatGPT simply do not match. Imagine some AI tools are like secret recipes you must pay to see, while others share only a few ingredients. DeepSeek is like an open cookbook, everyone can see, use, and even change its recipe without any rules.
Most other AI models, like OpenAI's GPT-4, DeepMind's Gemini, and Anthropic's Claude, keep their technology locked up, only letting paying users access them and controlling how they are used. While DeepSeek’s openness encourages innovation, it also comes with risks. Because anyone can repurpose the model, there is a danger that it could be misused for things like deepfakes or spreading false information.
As mentioned earlier, DeepSeek shines in technical tasks, delivering impressive results in areas like mathematics with a 90% accuracy rate, making it ideal for logical reasoning, coding, and complex equations. The DeepSeek-R1 model incorporates “chain-of-thought” reasoning, allowing it to excel in such tasks. While ChatGPT offers more nuanced, conversational responses and excels in creative or news-related topics, the consensus is that DeepSeek is superior for technical problem-solving.
As fast as DeepSeek came to limelight as the underdog of the Tech industry, the reaction of countries and few organizations to restrict its use was also too quick. Let’s see if these countries are banning DeepSeek for legitimate reasons, what are the main concerns, how geopolitics is playing a key role, and what are the implications for global AI and tech?
The most common reasons behind DeepSeek being banned by countries is due to ethics, privacy and security issues within the company.
As of Feb 2025, Italy, South Korea, Canada, Netherlands, Taiwan, Australia and the US have all taken strict action against DeepSeek AI, but it seems more countries will join the list soon. DeepSeek has sparked serious national security and privacy concerns. It collects sensitive personal data that is stored entirely in China, risking exposure to the Chinese government.
Additionally, the model is trained with a Chinese worldview and systematically censors topics sensitive to the China's Communist Party (CCP) like Taiwan’s independence or the 1989 Beijing crackdown, which raises fears of propaganda and undue influence. These issues have alarmed governments, already prompting bans in some countries, as they worry about the impact on domestic AI innovation and the potential for sensitive data to fall into the wrong hands.
In conclusion, DeepSeek, China’s groundbreaking AI company has shaken the global AI landscape, breaking the bubble of dominance by Western firms. As tech legend Marc Andreessen put it, “DeepSeek R1 is AI’s Sputnik moment,” drawing parallels to the Soviet Union’s breakthrough in the 1950s space race.
DeepSeek undoubtedly deserves the global recognition it is receiving for designing an AI chatbot that excels not only in performance and speed but also in its minimal investment. But with great innovation comes great responsibility.
The move to an open-source model has lowered the barrier to entry, allowing researchers, startups, and organizations to build AI without the need for big tech backing. But this also introduces concerns about safety, data privacy, censorship, misuse, political agendas side lined while training and the difficulty in regulating such decentralized models.
The launch of DeepSeek’s R1 model has left us questioning the future of AI—how do we balance innovation with security, and what about the geopolitical tensions it stirs?
By giving Western countries a new sense of “AI anxiety” and becoming what some call “Nvidia’s historical nightmare,” DeepSeek has undoubtedly shaken the dominance of US tech firms in generative AI.
As these companies try to prove themselves, it will be fascinating to witness how they compete, cooperate, or carve out entirely new paths using AI to ultimately shape society in the years ahead.
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