The release of the latest version of the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) model DeepSeek swiftly created a media and stock market storm as it, given the official costs of development, threw into disarray the massive investments made in Western AI companies.
Finbold research uncovered that in a single week ending on Monday, January 27, Google Trends global score for DeepSeek soared fiftyfold, hitting 100 – the highest figure possible for a selected region and time frame.
Though the score was the highest in China by far, the new model also soared above ChatGPT in the U.S.
Hong Kong, likewise, saw exceptional interest and took second place, while the countries where DeepSeek was also highly searched for, in descending order, include Singapore, Tunisia, Morocco, Nepal, Algeria, Ethiopia, Jordan, and Kenya.
Specifically, the AI model’s Google Trends score stood at 100 in China, 22 in Hong Kong, 16 in Singapore, and 6 in the U.S.
DeepSeek’s popularity also emerges outside Google Trends
The surge in interest was also evident on the Play Store, where the DeepSeek app took the top spot, leading to sufficient volume – and possibly a cyberattack – to ensure access is restricted to users with a Chinese phone number.
Additionally, the emergence of a new major player in the AI industry triggered a stock market bloodbath, with the semiconductor giant Nvidia (NVDA) being hit particularly hard and losing approximately $600 billion in market capitalization – the single biggest one-company valuation drop in a single day.
Still, as Andreja Stojanovic, a co-author of the research, pointed out, there were some immediate benefits:
“The introduction of new and powerful competition has had an immediate positive effect on consumers, as OpenAI’s Sam Altman promised additional features to ChatGPT’s paying users.”
Elsewhere, the tumult triggered some calls for a ban or restrictions on Chinese technology, akin to the tariffs and other protectionist measures imposed on Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers.
Read the full story with statistics at: https://finbold.com/deepseek-overtakes-chatgpt-with-50x-google-trends-surge-in-a-week/
