DeepSeek Faces Cyberattack Amid Rapid Rise in AI Market

DeepSeek forced to pause new signups following large scale cyberttack

DeepSeek has had to temporarily pause new signups to its generative AI chatbot due to "large-scale malicious attacks" against the platform. The open source model was recently released to the public, causing ripples across the technology industry, sending US markets into freefall. The relatively new platform has shot to number one on the US app store, replacing ChatGPT as the most popular free app, and has been rumored to have cost as little as $5.6 million to develop. This growth has apparently resulted in some unwanted attention, and DeepSeek has not shared any details about the attack, but due to the systems the attack is affecting, it is possibly a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against the platform's API and Web Chat services. The DeepSeek status page simply states, "Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services, we are temporarily limiting registrations to ensure continued service. Existing users can log in as usual. Thanks for your understanding and support." While registering for new users is currently unavailable the service can still be accessed by signing in with a Google account, with a user's email, language preference and profile picture being shared with DeepSeek in return. Despite numerous sanctions enacted by the Biden administration aimed at depriving China of the latest semiconductors, initial tests suggest that the DeepSeek model outperforms its US counterparts despite being developed for a fraction of the cost. Being released as open source means that the model is free to download and use by other AI developers, significantly disrupting the AI market in the US and causing huge sell-offs of shares in US tech companies. Whether the US will face this new-found competition in the AI arms race with innovation or increased sanctions remains to be seen.

Chinese tech startup DeepSeek says it was hit with 'large-scale malicious attacks'

LOS ANGELES -- Chinese tech startup DeepSeek said it was hit by a cyber attack on Monday that disrupted users' ability to register on the site. The company, whose artificial intelligence chatbot has sent the tech world into a frenzy, said that it had suffered "large-scale malicious attacks" on its services. Registered users could log in normally, DeepSeek said. DeepSeek began attracting more attention in the AI industry last month when it released a new AI model that it boasted was on par with similar models from U.S. companies such as ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and was more cost-effective in its use of expensive Nvidia chips to train the system on huge troves of data. The chatbot became more widely accessible when it appeared on Apple and Google app stores early this year. By Monday, DeepSeek's AI assistant had become the No. 1 downloaded free app on Apple's iPhone store. The jump in popularity fueled debates over competition between the U.S. and China in developing AI technology. But some U.S. tech industry observers said they were worried about the idea that the Chinese startup has caught up with the American companies at the forefront of generative AI at a fraction of the cost. DeepSeek was founded in Hangzhou, China in 2023. The company released its first AI large language model later that year.

Chinese tech startup DeepSeek says it was hit with 'large-scale malicious attacks'

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Chinese tech startup DeepSeek said it was hit by a cyber attack on Monday that disrupted users' ability to register on the site. The company, whose artificial intelligence chatbot has sent the tech world into a frenzy, said that it had suffered "large-scale malicious attacks" on its services. Registered users could log in normally, DeepSeek said. DeepSeek began attracting more attention in the AI industry last month when it released a new AI model that it boasted was on par with similar models from U.S. companies such as ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and was more cost-effective in its use of expensive Nvidia chips to train the system on huge troves of data. The chatbot became more widely accessible when it appeared on Apple and Google app stores early this year. By Monday, DeepSeek's AI assistant had become the No. 1 downloaded free app on Apple's iPhone store. The jump in popularity fueled debates over competition between the U.S. and China in developing AI technology. But some U.S. tech industry observers said they were worried about the idea that the Chinese startup has caught up with the American companies at the forefront of generative AI at a fraction of the cost. DeepSeek was founded in Hangzhou, China in 2023. The company released its first AI large language model later that year.

DeepSeek hit with large-scale cyberattack, says it's limiting registrations

The Chinese AI startup recently toppled OpenAI's ChatGPT from its title of most-downloaded free app in Apple's App Store. DeepSeek on Monday said it would temporarily limit user registrations "due to large-scale malicious attacks" on its services, though existing users will be able to log in as usual. The Chinese artificial intelligence startup has generated a lot of buzz in recent weeks as a fast-growing rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and other leading AI tools. Earlier on Monday, DeepSeek took over rival OpenAI's coveted spot as the most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple's App Store, dethroning ChatGPT for DeepSeek's own AI Assistant. It helped inspire a significant selloff in global tech stocks. Buzz about the company, which was founded in 2023 and released its R1 model last week, has spread to tech analysts, investors and developers, who say that the hype -- and ensuing fear of falling behind in the ever-changing AI hype cycle -- may be warranted. Especially in the era of the generative AI arms race, where tech giants and startups alike are racing to ensure they don't fall behind in a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. DeepSeek reportedly grew out of a Chinese hedge fund's AI research unit in April 2023 to focus on large language models and reaching artificial general intelligence, or AGI -- a branch of AI that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks, which OpenAI and its rivals say they're fast pursuing. The buzz around DeepSeek especially began to spread last week, when the startup released R1, its reasoning model that rivals OpenAI's o1. It's open-source, meaning that any AI developer can use it, and has rocketed to the top of app stores and industry leaderboards, with users praising its performance and reasoning capabilities. The startup's models were notably built despite the U.S. curbing chip exports to China three times in three years. Estimates differ on exactly how much DeepSeek's R1 costs, or how many GPUs went into it. Jefferies analysts estimated that a recent version had a "training cost of only US$5.6m (assuming US$2/H800 hour rental cost). That is less than 10% of the cost of Meta's Llama." But regardless of the specific numbers, reports agree that the model was developed at a fraction of the cost of rival models by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others. As a result, the AI sector is awash with questions, including whether the industry's increasing number of astronomical funding rounds and billion-dollar valuations is necessary -- and whether a bubble is about to burst.

DeepSeek hit with large-scale cyberattack, says it's limiting registrations

The DeepSeek app on a mobile phone in Beijing on Monday.Greg Baker / AFP - Getty Images DeepSeek on Monday said it would temporarily limit user registrations "due to large-scale malicious attacks" on its services, though existing users will be able to log in as usual. The Chinese artificial intelligence startup has generated a lot of buzz in recent weeks as a fast-growing rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and other leading AI tools. Earlier on Monday, DeepSeek took over rival OpenAI's coveted spot as the most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple's App Store, dethroning ChatGPT for DeepSeek's own AI Assistant. It helped inspire a significant selloff in global tech stocks. Buzz about the company, which was founded in 2023 and released its R1 model last week, has spread to tech analysts, investors and developers, who say that the hype -- and ensuing fear of falling behind in the ever-changing AI hype cycle -- may be warranted. Especially in the era of the generative AI arms race, where tech giants and startups alike are racing to ensure they don't fall behind in a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. DeepSeek reportedly grew out of a Chinese hedge fund's AI research unit in April 2023 to focus on large language models and reaching artificial general intelligence, or AGI -- a branch of AI that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks, which OpenAI and its rivals say they're fast pursuing. The buzz around DeepSeek especially began to spread last week, when the startup released R1, its reasoning model that rivals OpenAI's o1. It's open-source, meaning that any AI developer can use it, and has rocketed to the top of app stores and industry leaderboards, with users praising its performance and reasoning capabilities. The startup's models were notably built despite the U.S. curbing chip exports to China three times in three years. Estimates differ on exactly how much DeepSeek's R1 costs, or how many GPUs went into it. Jefferies analysts estimated that a recent version had a "training cost of only US$5.6m (assuming US$2/H800 hour rental cost). That is less than 10% of the cost of Meta's Llama." But regardless of the specific numbers, reports agree that the model was developed at a fraction of the cost of rival models by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others. As a result, the AI sector is awash with questions, including whether the industry's increasing number of astronomical funding rounds and billion-dollar valuations is necessary -- and whether a bubble is about to burst.

DeepSeek experiences outages and 'large-scale malicious attacks' amid overwhelming popularity

Currently ranking as the top free app on Apple's App Store, DeepSeek experienced widespread outages this morning, affecting its API and web chat services. According to the company's status page, the API was operating with "degraded performance," while the web chat service faced a "partial outage." DeepSeek, a Chinese startup and major AI competitor to ChatGPT, has rapidly emerged as a formidable player in the AI landscape. Founded in 2023, DeepSeek, backed by the hedge fund High-Flyer, focuses on developing open-source large language models (LLMs) that rival or surpass existing industry leaders in performance and cost efficiency. Established by Liang Wenfeng, who co-founded High-Flyer, DeepSeek is headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. The company's mission centers on advancing artificial general intelligence (AGI) through open-source research and development. This approach aims to democratize AI technology, making it accessible for commercial and academic applications. DeepSeek has temporarily restricted new user registrations to individuals with China-based phone numbers. This measure was implemented in response to "large-scale malicious attacks" targeting the platform's online services. Existing users remain unaffected and can continue to access their accounts without interruption. Initially, DeepSeek announced that only users with phone numbers bearing the +86 country code could register for new accounts. Later, the website's message was updated to indicate that "registration may be busy," suggesting a potential easing of the restriction. At that time, some users reported being able to register using email addresses -- I registered this morning using my personal email address. Unlike many AI firms offering subscription-based models, DeepSeek has fully open-sourced its models under the MIT license, allowing unrestricted commercial and academic use. This commitment to openness contrasts with the proprietary approaches of some competitors and has been instrumental in its rapid rise in popularity. DeepSeek has introduced several groundbreaking models since the company's first launch, including DeepSeek-V3. This model boasts 671 billion parameters and was trained on a dataset of 14.8 trillion tokens over approximately 55 days, costing around $5.58 million. Benchmark tests indicate that DeepSeek-V3 outperforms models like Llama 3.1 and Qwen 2.5 while matching the capabilities of GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Its architecture employs a mixture of experts with a Multi-head Latent Attention Transformer, containing 256 routed experts and one shared expert, activating 37 billion parameters per token. The latest model, DeepSeek-R1, released in January 2025, focuses on logical inference, mathematical reasoning, and real-time problem-solving. It was trained using reinforcement learning without supervised fine-tuning, employing group relative policy optimization (GRPO) to enhance reasoning capabilities. This model achieves performance comparable to OpenAI's o1 across various tasks, including mathematics and coding. One of DeepSeek's most significant contributions is demonstrating that high-performing AI models can be developed with substantially lower costs and resources. For instance, DeepSeek-V3 was trained using approximately 2,000 Nvidia H800 chips, starkly contrasting the 16,000 chips typically used by competitors. This efficiency has prompted a reevaluation of the massive investments in AI infrastructure by leading tech companies. The company has not provided specific details about the nature of the malicious attacks or the anticipated duration of the registration limitations. This situation highlights the challenges rapidly growing AI platforms face in ensuring security and service availability amidst increasing cyber threats. As the situation evolves, it remains to be seen how DeepSeek will address these security concerns while managing its expanding user base.

Chinese Tech Startup DeepSeek Says It Was Hit With 'Large-Scale Malicious Attacks'

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Chinese tech startup DeepSeek said it was hit by a cyber attack on Monday that disrupted users' ability to register on the site. The company, whose artificial intelligence chatbot has sent the tech world into a frenzy, said that it had suffered "large-scale malicious attacks" on its services. Registered users could log in normally, DeepSeek said. DeepSeek began attracting more attention in the AI industry last month when it released a new AI model that it boasted was on par with similar models from U.S. companies such as ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and was more cost-effective in its use of expensive Nvidia chips to train the system on huge troves of data. The chatbot became more widely accessible when it appeared on Apple and Google app stores early this year. By Monday, DeepSeek's AI assistant had become the No. 1 downloaded free app on Apple's iPhone store. The jump in popularity fueled debates over competition between the U.S. and China in developing AI technology. But some U.S. tech industry observers said they were worried about the idea that the Chinese startup has caught up with the American companies at the forefront of generative AI at a fraction of the cost. DeepSeek was founded in Hangzhou, China in 2023. The company released its first AI large language model later that year. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

DeepSeek hit by outages as users flock to Chinese AI startup

Chinese startup DeepSeek said Monday it is temporarily limiting registrations due to a large-scale malicious attack on its services. DeepSeek was 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 on Monday were the company's longest in around 90 days and coincides with its sky-rocketing popularity. 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 artificial intelligence application has surged in popularity among US users since it was released on Jan. 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 Washington's export controls targeting China's advanced chip and AI capabilities. AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek require advanced chips to power their training. The Biden administration has since 2021 widened the scope of bans designed to stop these chips from being exported to China and used to train Chinese firms' AI models. However, DeepSeek researchers wrote in a paper last month that the DeepSeek-V3 used Nvidia's H800 chips for training, spending less than $6 million. Although this detail has since been disputed, the claim that the chips used were less powerful than the most advanced Nvidia products Washington 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 models.

DeepSeek is limiting signups after a 'large-scale' cyberattack

Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek said it would temporarily limit signups after being the victim of "large-scale malicious attacks" on its servers. Existing users can log in without problems, the company said on its website. Earlier on Monday, the company said it would restrict signups for new users to people with a mainland China phone number. DeepSeek in December launched a free, open-source large language model, which it claimed it had developed in just two months for less than $6 million. Last week, the company launched a model that it said rivals OpenAI's ChatGPT and Meta's (META+0.78%) Llama 3.1 -- and which rose to the top of Apple's (AAPL+2.84%) App Store over the weekend. DeepSeek says it built the model using lower capability chips from Nvidia (NVDA-15.66%), which could put pressure on the major semiconductor maker. The reported cyberattacks come as DeepSeek's advanced technology sparked a widespread sell-off on Monday morning. Nvidia's stock plunged more than 15%, wiping out $18 billion of founder and CEO Jensen Huang's net worth. Other major chip stocks also sank, including ASML (ASML-6.48%), Broadcom (AVGO-17.36%), Super Micro Computer (SMCI-11.99%), Micron (MU-11.16%), and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM-14.35%) The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell by more than 600 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index of 30 of the largest U.S. companies including Nvidia, took a hit earlier on Monday but has since bounced back to a net 48-point gain. The S&P 500 is down almost 2%, or 107 points. "[T]he Street will view DeepSeek as a major perceived threat to U.S. tech dominance and owning this AI Revolution," Wedbush Securities analysts led by Dan Ives said in a note. "While the model is impressive and it will have a ripple impact," they added, U.S. tech companies are focused on achieving artificial general intelligence, with a focus on "the infrastructure and ecosystem that China and especially DeepSeek cannot come close to in our view."

Mega-Hyped Chinese AI App DeepSeek Says It's Been Hit by "Large-Scale Malicious Attacks"

DeepSeek, an AI startup that's risen to fame in a matter of days and has Silicon Valley shaking in its boots, says it has been hit with a major cyberattack. According to a notice on its website, the startup had to limit user registrations after being hit with "large-scale malicious attacks." "Existing users can log in as usual," the message reads. "Thanks for your understanding and support." It remains unclear what's behind these "malicious attacks" as DeepSeek continues to "investigate this issue." But the timing is certainly intriguing. The app's astronomic rise in popularity, eclipsing ChatGPT on Apple's App Store ranks, has rattled Silicon Valley, with major industry players on track to lose a staggering combined $1 trillion in stock value today. Is DeepSeek becoming the victim of its own success? Or might one or more of its adversaries be trying to slow down a major competitor, now that the Trump administration has thrown its full weight behind the AI industry? "Elon reads this and smiles as he looks over the 6,000-person war room he built to hack DeepSeek," tech reporter Matthew Ingram joked in a tweet, insinuating that the multi-hyphenate billionaire had orchestrated a cyberattack against the startup. While we can only speculate as to what's behind the purported cyberattacks, DeepSeek's astronomical rise in popularity and apparent cost efficiency sparked a major selloff in global tech stocks, with AI chipmaker Nvidia sliding by more than 16 percent Monday morning. The company wiped out over half a trillion in market capitalization alone, the greatest one-day value wipeout of a single company in history, according to Forbes. The company's latest R1 model was released last week. According to the company, it's at least as powerful as the latest publicly-released OpenAI model, despite only costing a fraction to train and run. However, its claims have yet to be independently verified. The possibility of the US AI industry falling behind China -- while potentially wasting billions of dollars on an unnecessary data center buildout -- has investors spooked. But would that fear be enough to inspire a state-backed hacking attempt targeting DeepSeek, or is the company simply struggling to scale up its operations as countless users flock to its app? It's a rapidly changing situation that will likely have plenty more surprises in store for us.

DeepSeek suspends new registrations amid cyberattack

Chinese AI startup grapples with consequences of sudden popularity China's DeepSeek, which shook up US AI companies with the debut of its R1 model family, has limited new signups due to ongoing cyberattack. "Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services, we are temporarily limiting registrations to ensure continued service," the company said in a post to its status page. "Existing users can log in as usual. Thanks for your understanding and support." The incident appears to have begun around 21:33 CST on Monday, January 27, or around 07:33 PST and was ongoing at the time this article was filed. DeekSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company's AI app for iOS, DeepSeek - AI Assistant, is presently the top free download in Apple's US App store, just above OpenAI's ChatGPT. The Chinese AI firm released DeepSeek-R1 as an open source model last month, claiming reasoning capabilities that rival OpenAI's GPT-o1 in a number of benchmarks. Having allegedly done so at just $5.58 million, significantly less than Western AI firms, investors in companies like Nvidia have begun to wonder whether they need to revise their financial assumptions. The result has been a selloff in AI stocks. The viability of open source models has long been a concern among commercial AI firms with proprietary models. AI skeptics like Gary Marcus have previously questioned the valuation of firms like OpenAI when companies like Meta have been giving away open source models at no charge.

DeepSeek hit with 'large-scale' cyber-attack after AI chatbot tops app stores

Attack forces Chinese company to temporarily limit registrations as app becomes highest rated free app in US DeepSeek said its newly popular app was hit with a cyber-attack on Monday, which forced the Chinese company to temporarily limit registrations. The attack came after the DeepSeek AI assistant app skyrocketed to the top of Apple's App Store, becoming the highest rated free app in the US, and climbed high in Google's Play Store. On its status page, DeepSeek said it started to investigate the issue late Monday night Beijing time. After about two hours of monitoring, the company said it was the victim of a "large-scale malicious attack". While DeekSeek limited registrations, existing users were still able to log on as usual. The app is now allowing registrations again; the status page reads, "DeepSeek-R1 is now live". DeepSeek's app is an AI assistant similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. The news of the app's ascendency in the US - and ability to edge out American rivals for a fraction of the cost - sent technology stocks tumbling on Monday. Nvidia, the AI chip maker and most valuable US company, saw its stocks plummet by 13.6% in early trading, wiping out some $500bn in market capitalization. Some tech investors were impressed at how quickly DeepSeek was able to create an AI assistant that nearly equals Google's and OpenAI's for roughly $5m while other AI companies spend billions for the same results, particularly with China under strict chip export controls that limit DeepSeek's access to computational power. The model's low-budget success could threaten the US's lead in the AI market. "Deepseek R1 is AI's Sputnik moment," investor Marc Andreessen wrote on X. Carrying the "Sputnik" theme, Vivek Ramaswamy posted, "Sputnik-like moments are a good thing. We don't need to freak out, we just need to wake up." Ramaswamy is an entrepreneur and politician who is close to Donald Trump. Trump himself announced a new $500bn AI venture called Stargate last week. It's a collaboration with OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle, and the president guaranteed it would be "the future of technology" in the US. The announcement was derided by Trump ally and AI pioneer Elon Musk, who got into a tiff on X with OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman over how much money Stargate actually has to invest.

DeepSeek pauses new signups as cyberattack follows viral success

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has found itself in the spotlight for two very different reasons. On Monday, the company revealed plans to temporarily limit new user registrations following a cyberattack, mere hours after its AI assistant became the top-rated free app on Apple's U.S. App Store. The sudden surge in downloads tested the firm's infrastructure, leading to a wave of login errors and website outages -- its longest downtime in three months. Behind the scenes, the spotlight remains on the DeepSeek-V3 model powering this viral AI assistant. DeepSeek positions V3 as a lean and resource-efficient competitor to incumbent industry heavyweights, claiming it rivals closed-source models in performance at a fraction of the cost. While the startup has reported using Nvidia's H800 chips -- viewed as less cutting-edge than those Washington hopes to keep out of China -- it insists its total training expense stayed under $6 million. This assertion has prompted skepticism among U.S. tech executives, who question the real impact of export controls and wonder how a relatively unknown Hangzhou-based team managed to achieve high-tier AI results so rapidly. Someone stop DeepSeek: Meet Janus-Pro-7B, another free AI model Observers also note the ripple effects of DeepSeek's swift rise on tech markets. Shares of U.S. chipmaker Nvidia and other major technology stocks plummeted Monday, reflecting broader uncertainty about global AI competition and the near-daily advances in model development. By contrast, DeepSeek's success suggests that China's AI ecosystem could be maturing faster than many expected -- even amidst ongoing trade and export restrictions. Little is known about DeepSeek beyond its 2023 founding and low-profile origins, but its abrupt upswing highlights a possible shift in the industry's balance of power. With user interest at fever pitch and questions swirling around the efficacy of export controls, all eyes are now on how DeepSeek will handle its mounting security and infrastructure challenges

Deepseek AI says 'large-scale, malicious' cyberattack is limiting registration

The China-based AI startup has experienced explosive growth over the past week, drawing comparisons to the viral launch of ChatGPT itself. DeepSeek AI's open-source large language model (LLM), DeepSeek R1, claims to boast performance that rivals its Western competitors -- allegedly at half the cost and with significantly less computing power, too. A massive migration of users to DeepSeek's platform, available as a free web app and on iOS and Android, has strained its infrastructure. Alleged cyberattacks have only added to the strain, forcing the company to temporarily limit new registrations, as noted on its status page. DeepSeek has not elaborated on the nature or scale of the attacks and did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek faces malicious attacks after surging in popularity - SiliconANGLE

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek faces malicious attacks after surging in popularity On a day that American equities markets took a hammering after investors started to pay attention to its latest artificial intelligence models, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek experienced "large-scale malicious attacks" on its services, forcing the company to temporarily limit signups. The company has not disclosed the exact form of the attack. The attacks did not take the service offline versus, at least at the time of writing, causing the company to limit signups. A banner on the DeepSeek site reads, "Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services, registration may be busy. Please wait and try again. Registered users can log in normally." The obvious candidate would be a distributed denial-of-service attack, one that has not been entirely successful, be it with enough traffic to start to cause issues but not enough to take service down completely. It could also be possible that the problems could be in part due to a massive surge of users seeking to sign up for and access DeepSeek's free service. DeepSeek's application hit the top of the Apple Store's top free apps charts in the U.S. earlier today, not only beating OpenAI's ChatGPT but also bringing millions of new users to the service. It's not impossible that DeepSeek didn't plan for the surge of new users and to be fair to them, very few, if any, people would have expected Monday to see the service not only surge to the top of the app charts but also knock 3.1% off the Nasdaq and 1.5% off the S&P 500. Investor concerns over DeepSeek are that the company trains its AI models for far less than rival American companies. The company's R1 reasoning model, released last week and offered for free and under an open-source license, is reported to have cost just $5.58 million to train, a mere fraction of the cost other models have reportedly cost to train. Core to the AI investment surge and even announcements such as Project Stargate has been, until now, a belief that training new AI models is highly costly and requires more and more computing power; DeepSeek has thrown that idea on its head. Discussing the attack, Stephen Kowski, field chief technology officer at cloud email security provider SlashNext Inc., told SiliconANGLE via email that the "surge in DeepSeek's popularity, particularly overtaking ChatGPT on Apple's App Store, naturally attracts diverse threat actors ranging from hacktivists to sophisticated state-sponsored groups seeking to exploit or disrupt this emerging AI platform." "While DDoS attacks are an obvious concern, the more insidious threats likely involve probing URL Parameters, API endpoints and input validation mechanisms to manipulate or compromise the AI model's responses potentially," Kowski explains. "The motivations span from competitive intelligence gathering to potentially using the infrastructure as a launchpad for broader attacks, especially given the open-source nature of the technology." "The high-profile success and advanced AI capabilities make DeepSeek an attractive target for opportunistic attackers and those seeking to understand or exploit AI system vulnerabilities," Kowski added.

DeepSeek hit by cyberattack as users flock to Chinese AI startup

STORY: Chinese startup DeepSeek - whose new low-cost AI model rattled tech stocks Monday - suffered a large-scale cyberattack, causing it to temporarily limit registrations. Earlier in the day, DeepSeek said it was hit by outages on its website after its AI assistant became the top-rated free app in Apple's U.S. App Store and overtook ChatGPT in downloads. DeepSeek claims it uses cheaper chips and less data, challenging the idea that advanced semiconductors, like those made by Nvidia, are needed to run AI applications. That sent major tech stocks tumbling, with shares of Nvidia falling as much as 17.8% at one point Monday morning. Brian Jacobsen is chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. "This could really be a change in the script, a change in the narrative around artificial intelligence, where it's no longer about what has been called the picks and shovels [FLASH] that was like Nvidia as far as with the chips that they were selling and maybe even the data center providers. Now it's moved on from the picks and the shovels more to perhaps the refiners and the jewelers in that narrative, where it's more about what's the actual use case of the technology." DeepSeek's popularity has also upended widely held views about U.S. dominance in the AI space and the effectiveness of Washington's export controls targeting China's advanced chip and AI capabilities. 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 U.S. tech industry as matching or even surpassing the performance of cutting-edge U.S. models.

DeepSeek AI tops app store charts but is restricting new users amid malicious server attacks

The Chinese company is yet to clarify how these limitations are being placed. DeepSeek AI recently made it to the headlines for being the closest and newest competitor to OpenAI in town. In just a couple of days, the AI assistant also topped Apple's App Store charts in the US. However, it seems that the DeepSake AI Assistant was not ready for it. As per a recent report by The Verge, new user registration is now being restricted. The restrictions have been imposed in response to "large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services." The Chinese company is yet to clarify how these limitations are being placed. DeepSeek shared an update where it said that the "existing users can log in as usual," and expressed gratitude for user understanding. Meanwhile, a banner on the web sign-up page suggests that "registration may be busy". It doesn't say that the registration has been completely restricted, and is encouraging users to "try again" if their attempts are unsuccessful. Previously, some outages and performance issues were also reported with the DeepSeek AI assistant. This limited users from signing in or creating accounts. While DeepSeek has resolved these issues, it remains tight-lipped about the nature of the attacks. Initially, it was speculated that the app's systems were unable to handle the large surge in new users, given its reputation as a competitor to AI giants like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. An earlier update indicated that only registrations using a mainland China mobile number were supported to "ensure continued service." However, this requirement has since been removed. Users can now create accounts using Google or Apple IDs, and email registration is also listed as an option on the web-based sign-up page. As we have seen in the past if the company doesn't deal with the issues at the earliest, DeepSeek's rise to fame can be pretty short lived and people will move on to something else.

After DeepSeek's Popularity Skyrocketed On Apple's App Store, The Chinese Startup Became A Target Of Cyber Attacks, Forcing It To Suspend Registrations Temporarily

Alarm waves were scattered across Silicon Valley when it was learned that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek became the number one free app on Apple's App Store in artificial intelligence assistants. This placed the program ahead of ChatGPT, but in the process, the company ended up having a massive target on its back because it now has to endure waves of large-scale cyber attacks that are threatening its daily operations. As a result of these attacks, DeepSeek has been forced to limit registrations until it can get things under control. With registrations limited, DeepSeek has put out the following message below, mentioning that those who were already registered can use the services without interruption. What is interesting about this development is that these attacks arrived just moments after we reported that the AI startup's popularity caused NVIDIA's valuation to be trimmed by a whopping $384 billion, not to mention China pledging to invest one trillion yuan to jumpstart its AI industry. "Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services, registration may be busy. Please wait and try again. Registered users can log in normally. Thank you for your understanding and support." There has been a ton of buzz surrounding DeepSeek, as the firm has now become a potential rival and threat to OpenAI, with Google's Gemini and other leading AI tools likely feeling immense pressure from its popularity surge. To recap, it was founded in 2023 and released its R1 model just last week. Whether or not we see AI companies witness a stock rebound in a few days is anyone's guess, but we will not be surprised if U.S. investors and other technology giants start to sweat profusely over DeepSeek's growth. One may assume that these attacks were deliberate, but there is no use speculating when there is zero proof to back up these claims. What we can do is monitor how the Trump administration will respond to DeepSeek, though the typical stimuli will probably revolve around delisting the application from Apple's App Store. Whatever happens, we will update our readers accordingly, so stay tuned.

Is DeepSeek already down? ChatGPT rival and App Store king struggling to cope with demand

The new ChatGPT competitor created by a Chinese start-up is experiencing service outages and the company's status page claims it is investigating possible causes. The AI chatbot has gained worldwide acclaim over the last week or so for its incredible reasoning model that's completely free and on par with OpenAI's o1 model. According to the company's status page, there's an issue that is preventing users from signing up and accessing DeepSeek and its DeepThink R1 AI model. While I've not experienced any issues with the app or website on my iPhone, I did encounter issues on my Pixel 8a when writing a DeepSeek vs ChatGPT comparison earlier today. It appears that creating new accounts is causing DeepSeek issues, often showing errors when a user attempts to send a prompt. The latest incident appears to be resolved as of 9:32pm Chinese local time (8.32am ET / 1.32pm GMT). But considering the huge influx of users, there could be further issues throughout Monday and the rest of the week. DeepSeek has taken the world by storm by offering an AI chatbot that's as good, if not better, than OpenAI's class-leading ChatGPT. While that's excellent for people looking to get their hands on a free AI with immense capability, it could lead to issues and outages more frequently as the servers struggle to cope with demand. We'll be monitoring this outage and potential future ones closely, so stay tuned to TechRadar for all your DeepSeek news.

DeepSeek hit by outages - plus all the latest news about the ChatGPT rival

DeepSeek is the most popular app in the world right now but the AI chatbot is struggling to meet demand with reports of outages and errors from users around the globe. It's no surprise to see DeepSeek is already down, considering it's the number one app on the App Store in the US and UK. The new ChatGPT competitor from a Chinese start-up has taken the world by storm thanks to its incredible reasoning power without any cost. Unfortunately, it appears that DeepSeek has encountered malicious attacks as of Monday night in China and we're monitoring the situation to see what happens. Read on to stay up-to-date with all the latest DeepSeek outage information.

Traffic To China's DeepSeek Surged From 300K To 6 Million Visits

DeepSeek, the Chinese startup that's been shocking the AI industry, has seen its web traffic surge from a mere 280,000 visitors all the way to 6.2 million. The data comes from traffic monitoring service Similarweb, which has been tracking daily visits to DeepSeek.com. The site was previously receiving about 200,000 to 300,000 visits per day. But after DeepSeek released V3 of its AI chatbot on December 26th, visits to the site have been tripling and septupling, crossing 1 million and 2 million visits. Worldwide daily visits to DeepSeek.com then began reaching 3.1 million on January 15th before surging to 4 million, and then 5 million last week -- right as word began to circulate that DeepSeek's chatbot showed it could blow a hole in the US's AI market. On Friday, January 24th, traffic to the site then reached 6.2 million, according to SimilarWeb's latest tally. The number is far behind OpenAI's ChatGPT, which was able to attract over 100 million user visits in a single day starting last year. Still, visits to DeepSeek.com and the mobile app almost certainly exploded even more on Monday when US tech stocks took a dive on the apparent implications of the Chinese company's AI tech. That's because DeepSeek has developed two open source and high-quality AI models, V3 and R1, which can be run using far less GPU compute power, drastically reducing the cost and energy needs for generative AI. Hence, the US might not need to spend tens of billions of dollars on power-hungry data centers and energy plants to train and run future generations of AI -- thereby dealing a blow to the business models of Nvidia, OpenAI, Microsoft and others. "Turning up mothballed nuclear power plants was never going to be the answer. There is so much opportunity to improve the efficiency of AI," tweeted Cloudflare's CEO Matthew Prince. The interest in DeepSeek may have also caused hackers to launch a DDoS attack against the company's site. On Monday morning, the Chinese company "temporarily" blocked some access to new users, citing "large-scale malicious attacks" on the DeepSeek.com domain. As a result, the restriction might deter continued traffic to the site, although DeepSeek says existing users can continue to log in. Still, the company appears to be loosening the limitation when before it said only new users possessing a China-based +86 phone numbers could access the site. DeepSeek.com now just says: "Registration may be busy. Please wait and try again."

DeepSeek's top-ranked AI app is restricting sign-ups due to 'malicious attacks'

"Existing users can log in as usual," DeepSeek said in its update. "Thanks for your understanding and support." An alert banner on the DeepSeek web sign-up page says that "registration may be busy," rather than entirely restricted, however, and encourages users to wait and "try again" if their application is unsuccessful. Outages and performance issues were reported by DeepSeek earlier today, which prevented users from signing in or creating new accounts. That incident has now been marked as resolved, but no information has been provided about the reported attacks against DeepSeek's chatbot app. It was previously thought that DeepSeek's systems may be under strain due to a huge influx of new users downloading the app, which is said to rival Western AI services like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropics Claude.

As users flock to DeepSeek, the Chinese AI titan is hit by outages

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, experienced outages following its rapid rise to the top-rated free app on Apple's US App Store. DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, experienced website outages after its AI assistant rose to the top of the US App Store's free app ratings. According to its status page, the business fixed problems with its application programming interface and users' inability to access the website. In keeping with its rapidly increasing popularity, Monday's outages were the longest the company has experienced in about 90 days. According to app data research firm Sensor Tower, the artificial intelligence application has seen a sharp increase in popularity among U.S. users since its January 10 release, driven by the DeepSeek-V3 model, which its developers claim tops the leaderboard among open-source models and rivals the most advanced closed-source models globally. The milestone demonstrates how DeepSeek has profoundly impacted Silicon Valley, challenging conventional wisdom regarding American dominance in the field of AI and the efficacy of Washington's export restrictions aimed at China's cutting-edge chip and AI capabilities. Advanced chips are needed to power the training of AI models, ranging from ChatGPT to DeepSeek. Bans that prevented these chips from being exported to China and used to train AI models for Chinese companies have been expanded by the Biden administration since 2021. However, in a paper published last month, DeepSeek researchers revealed that the DeepSeek-V3 cost less than $6 million and trained on Nvidia's H800 chips. The company behind DeepSeek, a tiny startup based in Hangzhou that was established in 2023 when search engine behemoth Baidu unveiled the first Chinese AI large-language model, is not well known. DeepSeek is the first AI model to receive praise from the U.S. tech industry for matching or even outperforming state-of-the-art U.S. models. What caused DeepSeek, the Chinese AI titan? The outages were caused by API issues and a surge in popularity after its AI assistant became the highest-rated free app in the United States App Store. Why is DeepSeek important in the AI industry? DeepSeek's model, DeepSeek-V3, competes with top US AI models despite lower training costs and restrictions on advanced chip access, raising concerns about US technology export policies.

DeepSeek Struggles to Keep AI Chatbot Online as Users Surge

DeepSeek said that it's investigating an outage that disrupted service and prevented signups after new users rushed to download the Chinese artificial intelligence chatbot. The latest incident was resolved as of 9:32 p.m. in China on Monday, a little over an hour after the company first disclosed it, DeepSeek said. The startup's status page also shows problems with its API earlier in the day and on Sunday.

AI startup DeepSeek pauses signups amid cyber incident | TechCrunch

DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup that made waves in the AI world last week when it released its open-source R1 model, is pausing new user signups. The company has temporarily paused new user registrations this morning, according to CNBC reporting, due to a cyberattack. Existing users can still access their accounts with no issue. TechCrunch reached out to DeepSeek for comment and will update the story if we hear back. This comes just days after DeepSeek first became the topic du jour of the AI world, driven by industry excitement over its R1 model. DeepSeek claims its reasoning model beats OpenAI's o1 on multiple benchmarks. Today the company released a new image model family. DeepSeek's app hit 2.6 million downloads on Sunday, according to data from Appfigures, with 1 million downloads coming from last Friday alone.