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DeepSeek down: Viral Chinese AI app not working and bans international users due to 'malicious attacks'
The Independent - DeepSeek down: Viral Chinese AI app not working and bans international users due to ‘malicious attacks’
Andrew Griffin
Monday 27 January 2025 11:25 EST
Viral Chinese AI app DeepSeek has stopped working amid what appears to be a technical issue.
The largely-unknown company behind the app has limited new signups to phone numbers within China, effectively banning new registrations from international users. That appears to be an attempt to limit the number of people looking to log in and use the app.
A banner on the app’s web chat also said that DeepSeek’s “online services have faced large-scale malicious attacks”, though it did not say who it believed those attacks to have come from.
Monday’s outages were the latest in a run of problems in recent days, as DeepSeek has become a viral success. The perceived better performance of DeepSeek’s models led US tech companies to lose $1 trillion in valuation, amid fears that Chinese AI could overtake those in Silicon Valley.
DeepSeek was created in 2023, in the wake of excitement over other AI tools from companies such as ChatGPT. At that point, China was widely thought to be trailing behind US research and development of artificial intelligence.
Since its founding, however, DeepSeek has released a range of models that have helped increase confidence in the work coming from China. The startup has said that its more advanced models are on a par with those from OpenAI and Meta, while also being dramatically cheaper to use.
/snip
Andrew Griffin
Monday 27 January 2025 11:25 EST
Viral Chinese AI app DeepSeek has stopped working amid what appears to be a technical issue.
The largely-unknown company behind the app has limited new signups to phone numbers within China, effectively banning new registrations from international users. That appears to be an attempt to limit the number of people looking to log in and use the app.
A banner on the app’s web chat also said that DeepSeek’s “online services have faced large-scale malicious attacks”, though it did not say who it believed those attacks to have come from.
Monday’s outages were the latest in a run of problems in recent days, as DeepSeek has become a viral success. The perceived better performance of DeepSeek’s models led US tech companies to lose $1 trillion in valuation, amid fears that Chinese AI could overtake those in Silicon Valley.
DeepSeek was created in 2023, in the wake of excitement over other AI tools from companies such as ChatGPT. At that point, China was widely thought to be trailing behind US research and development of artificial intelligence.
Since its founding, however, DeepSeek has released a range of models that have helped increase confidence in the work coming from China. The startup has said that its more advanced models are on a par with those from OpenAI and Meta, while also being dramatically cheaper to use.
/snip