AdvertisementTechAI start-up DeepSeek hit in hack after app store debutAAPJan 28, 2025, updatedJan 28, 2025ShareUS tech stocks have tumbled after Chinese competitor DeepSeek emerged.Photo: AAPChinese startup DeepSeek says it will temporarily limit registrations due to a cyber attack after the company’s artificial intelligence assistant amassed sudden popularity.Earlier on Monday (US time), the startup was also hit by outages on its website after its AI assistant became the top-rated free application available on Apple’s App Store in the US.The company resolved issues relating to its application programming interface and users’ inability to log in to the website, according to its status page.The outages were the company’s longest in about 90 days and coincided with its sky-rocketing popularity.Last week, DeepSeek launched a free assistant it said used less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent players’ models, possibly marking a turning point in the level of investment needed for AI.Powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model, which its creators say “tops the leaderboard among open-source models and rivals the most advanced closed-source models globally”, the AI application has surged in popularity among US users since it was released on January 10, according to app data research firm Sensor Tower.The milestone highlights how DeepSeek has left a deep impression on Silicon Valley, upending widely held views about US primacy in AI and the effectiveness of US export controls targeting China’s advanced chip and AI capabilities.US technology stocks were hammered on Monday, sending the shares of Nvidia and Oracle plummeting.AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek require advanced chips to power their training.Since 2021, the US – under the Biden administration – has widened the scope of bans designed to stop the chips from being exported to China and used to train Chinese firms’ AI models.However, DeepSeek researchers wrote last month that the DeepSeek-V3 used Nvidia’s H800 chips for training, spending less than $US6 million ($A9.5 million).Although this detail has since been disputed, the claim that the chips used were less powerful than the most advanced Nvidia products the US has sought to keep out of China, as well as the relatively cheap training costs, has prompted US tech executives to question the effectiveness of tech export controls.Little is known about the company behind DeepSeek, a small Hangzhou-based startup founded in 2023, when search engine giant Baidu released the first Chinese AI large-language model.Since then, dozens of Chinese tech companies large and small have released their own AI models but DeepSeek is the first to be praised by the US tech industry as matching or even surpassing the performance of cutting-edge US modelsTopics:Artificial Intelligence,TechShareFollow The New DailyAdvertisementMore Tech>TechApple launches ‘age assurance’ technologyTechLabor pledges nationwide mobile coverageTechHackers may have stolen IVF patients’ personal dataTechWe are in the era of the 'Aldification' of solarUSElon Musk’s ‘smartest AI on earth’ ready to goTechHate speech on X surged after Musk takeoverTechRevolutionary AI tool helps to free up hospital bedsTechMusk-led group makes $155b bid to buy OpenAITechFridges still use '50s tech – now there's an update