The model was developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which claims that R1 matches or even surpasses OpenAI’s ChatGPT o1 on multiple key benchmarks but operates at a fraction of the cost.

Chinese tech startup DeepSeek ’s new artificial intelligence chatbot has sparked discussions about the competition between China and the U.S. in AI development, with many users flocking to test the rival of OpenAI ‘s ChatGPT.

DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial-intelligence startup that’s just over a year old, has stirred awe and consternation in Silicon Valley after demonstrating AI models that offer comparable performance to the world’s best chatbots at seemingly a fraction of their development cost.