DeepSeek overtakes ChatGPT to top app charts

Shares in major US technology firms have fallen steeply in value in response to the sudden emergence of a low-cost chatbot built by a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm.

The DeepSeek app, which was launched last week, has overtaken rivals including ChatGPT to become the most downloaded free app in the United States.

Shares in US-based and AI-related tech firms such as Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta were all down on Monday ahead of the US markets opening.

The chatbot was reportedly developed for a fraction of the cost of its rivals - raising questions about the future of America's AI dominance and the scale of investments US firms are planning.

The company was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng in Hangzhou, a city in southeastern China.

The 40-year-old, an information and electronic engineering graduate, also founded the hedge fund that backed DeepSeek.

He reportedly built up a store of Nvidia A100 chips, now banned from export to China. Experts believe this collection - which some estimates put at 50,000 - led him to launch DeepSeek, by pairing these chips with cheaper, lower-end ones that are still available to import.

Mr Liang was recently seen at a meeting between industry experts and the Chinese premier Li Qiang.

In a July 2024 interview with The China Academy, Mr Liang said he was surprised by the reaction to the previous version of his AI model.

"We didn't expect pricing to be such a sensitive issue," he said.

"We were simply following our own pace, calculating costs, and setting prices accordingly."

Additional reporting by Joao Da Silva and Dearbail Jordan.