For the last few years, a few names have dominated the AI space. Big guns like OpenAI, Google and Adobe have owned the conversation since 2023, so it's no surprise that the industry is a little, well, surprised, to see a new contender turning heads. Seemingly out of nowhere, DeepSeek is apparently causing consternation for everyone from OpenAI to NVIDIA.
DeepSeek has been quietly impressing the AI community for a couple of years, but it's suddenly exploded into the mainstream with the release of its R1 model (not to be confused with the Rabbit R1), which it claims to have a performance on a par with OpenAI’s o1 model. Not only is DeepSeek suddenly top of global app store charts, but it's also caused US tech firms' stock to crash, and OpenAI to promise 'better models' in response.
