DeepSeek Resumes API Access Amid Intensifying Chinese AI Competition

DeepSeek reopens AI model access as China rivalry heats up

DeepSeek has reopened access to its core programming interface after nearly a three-week suspension, resuming a service key to wider adoption of an AI model that's proven remarkably popular since its emergence last month. The 20-month-old Chinese startup, which stunned Silicon Valley and markets in January with an AI platform that rivals OpenAI's, said it's again allowing customers to top up credits for use on its application programming interface. DeepSeek suspended top-ups in early February because of capacity shortages. While those have now resumed, server resources will remain constrained during the daytime, a DeepSeek representative said in a verified company group chat on WeChat. DeepSeek resumed top-ups the same day that Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. launched a preview of its latest model, QwQ-Max, underscoring the deepening competition within China's nascent AI industry. TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. also said it's testing a self-developed deep reasoning model with a limited set of users, adding the prospect of another enhanced DeepSeek rival.

DeepSeek Reopens Access to AI Model as Chinese Rivalry Escalates

DeepSeek has reopened access to its core programming interface after nearly a three-week suspension, resuming a service key to wider adoption of an AI model that's proven remarkably popular since its emergence last month. The 20-month-old Chinese startup, which stunned Silicon Valley and markets in January with an AI platform that rivals OpenAI's, said it's again allowing customers to top up credits for use on its application programming interface. DeepSeek suspended top-ups in early February because of capacity shortages. While those have now resumed, server resources will remain strained during the daytime, a DeepSeek representative said in a verified company group chat on WeChat.

DeepSeek Reopens Access to AI Model as Chinese Rivalry Escalates

(Bloomberg) -- DeepSeek has reopened access to its core programming interface after nearly a three-week suspension, resuming a service key to wider adoption of an AI model that's proven remarkably popular since its emergence last month. The 20-month-old Chinese startup, which stunned Silicon Valley and markets in January with an AI platform that rivals OpenAI's, said it's again allowing customers to top up credits for use on its application programming interface. DeepSeek suspended top-ups in early February because of capacity shortages. While those have now resumed, server resources will remain strained during the daytime, a DeepSeek representative said in a verified company group chat on WeChat. DeepSeek resumed top-ups the same day that Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. launched a preview of its latest model, QwQ-Max, underscoring the deepening competition within China's nascent AI industry. Alibaba pledged this week to invest $53 billion over three years to bolster its cloud computing and AI infrastructure, in a major pivot for the e-commerce pioneer. On Tuesday, Alibaba declared plans to open-source QwQ-Max, intensifying competition with DeepSeek as well as other developers from Baidu Inc. to startups like Zhipu. DeepSeek's arrival reinvigorated the Chinese tech scene and triggered a rally in mainland and Hong Kong stocks. Its services have been overwhelmed with demand since unveiling an artificial intelligence chatbot that it says can rival OpenAI's ChatGPT and was developed at a fraction of the cost of competing products. Its models have since been adopted by a plethora of Chinese firms across multiple industries, even as foreign governments from Australia to the US move to block its usage over security concerns. Last week, DeepSeek said it plans to release key code and data to the public, an unusual step to share more of its core technology than rivals such as OpenAI have done. That potentially escalates a race between the US and China to develop ever more advanced AI models.

DeepSeek reopens access to its API after three-week pause | TechCrunch

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has reopened access to its API after halting service for nearly three weeks due to capacity constraints. On Tuesday, the company began allowing customers to top up credits for use on its API, which lets developers build apps and services on top of cloud-hosted versions of DeepSeek's AI. Server resources remain strained during the daytime, however, a representative for the company cautioned in a WeChat message seen by Bloomberg. DeepSeek rose to prominence earlier this year following the release of its openly available R1 "reasoning" model, which matches or bests the performance of some of OpenAI's top models. DeepSeek's competitiveness has prompted OpenAI to consider open-sourcing more of its technology and "pull up" certain product releases. As Bloomberg notes, DeepSeek's domestic rivals are ramping up production of their models, as well. The same day DeepSeek resumed API top-ups, Chinese tech giant Alibaba launched a preview of its latest reasoning AI model, QwQ-Max, which the company plans to open-source.

DeepSeek Resumes Allowing AI Access Following Capacity Shortages | PYMNTS.com

The Chinese company, which rocked the tech world last month with its AI platform, suspended service earlier this month due to server capacity shortages. DeepSeek will now allow customers to top up credits to be used on its API, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (Feb. 25). Server resources will still be strained during the daytime, however. The company's popularity boomed after it released an AI model in January that it said could perform as well as OpenAI's while being developed for a fraction of the cost. The news sent tech stocks tumbling while raising questions about the need for massive spending on AI projects. "DeepSeek challenges the narrative that innovation must come at an unsustainable cost," Gokul Naidu, a consultant for SAP, told PYMNTS last month. "For businesses, this means AI could soon be accessible to small and medium enterprises, not just tech giants with deep pockets." Since then, some tech industry figures have questioned DeepSeek's spending claims. Demis Hassabis, Google's AI chief, said the company appeared to have reported the cost of its final training round, "which is a fraction of the total cost." "I look at GenAI as the phase that we're in now and starting to get commoditized," Wells said. "I think DeepSeek definitely shot the arrow across our bow to say that we can do this for a lot less and make models that have high efficacy."

DeepSeek reopens access to AI model as Chinese rivalry escalates

Its services have been overwhelmed with demand since unveiling an artificial intelligence chatbot that it says can rival OpenAI's ChatGPT and was developed at a fraction of the cost of competing products. Its models have since been adopted by a plethora of Chinese firms across multiple industries, even as foreign governments from Australia to the US move to block its usage over security concerns.