The messaging was rolled out on platforms such as X and META.O Facebook and Instagram, as well as Chinese services Toutiao and Weibo, Graphika said.

Nvidia’s Blackwell chip – the world’s most powerful AI chip to date – costs around US$40,000 per unit, and AI companies often need tens of thousands of them. But up to now, AI companies haven’t really struggled to attract the necessary investment, even if the sums are huge. DeepSeek might change all this.

The buzz surrounding DeepSeek intensified following its launch on January 20, with discussions comparing its advancements to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek has rattled markets with claims its latest AI model performs on a par with those of OpenAI, despite using less advanced, more energy efficient computer chips.

DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup founded in 2023, shot to the top of Apple’s App Store free app chart after releasing a new open-source AI model it says rivals OpenAI's work. Its website was hit by outages amid a spike in interest.