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
Dara Kerr
Mon 27 Jan
2025 20.40 CET
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/27/deepseek-cyberattack-ai
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.
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,” the 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 is 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.
Trump, who
was attending a House Republicans conference in Florida, said the emergence of
a DeepSeek should be a “wake-up call” for US companies. He said American
companies “need to be laser-focused on competing to win”.
Trump said
his decision to revoke the Biden AI rules through executive order will allow AI
companies to “focus on being the best” instead of on being the most “woke”.
DeepSeek did
not return a request for comment.
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