Chinese generative artificial intelligence (AI) modeling app DeepSeek R-1 has "temporarily limited" new user registrations following "large-scale malicious attacks."
"Following large-scale malicious attacks against DeepSeek services, we have temporarily limited registrations to ensure service continuity. Existing users can log in as normal. Thank you for your understanding and support," the app said on its web portal.
The platform is "still investigating the issue," which caused web services and application programming interfaces to operate with "degraded performance," DeepSeek admitted.
On Monday, the app topped the App Store download charts in both China and the United States, beating the popular ChatGPT.
Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, the company that owns ChatGPT, said Monday night that DeepSeek's new model is impressive.
"Especially considering what they can deliver for the price," he added of Altman on social media.
The DeepSeek-R1 model, launched on January 20, is, according to its creator, comparable to the o1 model from OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, in solving mathematical problems, programming and natural language inference.
The model is the brainchild of DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence modeling company backed by quantitative investment firm Huanfang Quant.
The open-source tool has recently made a significant impact on the international developer community and the technology industry due to its efficiency and low cost.
According to the company, the model was trained over 55 days, with a budget of 5.57 million dollars (5.33 million euros), using a set of 2,048 H800 graphics processor units from the North American semiconductor manufacturer. Nvidia, a low-capacity version designed for the Chinese market, given the restrictions imposed by the United States on high-tech exports to China.
That cost represents less than a tenth of the cost of training OpenAI's 4o model, according to Chinese media.
Following the news, US semiconductor conglomerate Nvidia 'sank' on Wall Street, dropping 17% on Monday.
Nvidia's market capitalization loss was $589 billion (€564 billion), equivalent to twice the value of Portugal's gross domestic product in 2023.
This loss is one of the worst ever recorded on the New York stock market, local media reported, with investors digesting the possibility of a more profitable solution than that of US groups in terms of AI.
As a result of the loss, Nvidia lost its status as the company with the largest capitalization in the world, falling behind Apple and Microsoft.
