South Korean media: DeepSeek is popular, shaking the US monopoly!
On February 3, South Korean media "Today's Digital" published an article stating that the open-source artificial intelligence model developed by Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is spreading rapidly in developing countries.
A Microsoft report shows that during the period from October to December last year, 16.3% of the global population used generative AI, an increase from the previous quarter (15.1%). However, the technological gap is widening, with wealthy countries adopting AI at about twice the rate of other countries.
Microsoft stated that AI technology should not be exclusive to a single country and assessed that DeepSeek could serve as a bridge to enhance AI accessibility in developing countries. DeepSeek is a Chinese AI startup established in 2023, which released its R1 model in January 2025. This model has lower operating costs compared to OpenAI's ChatGPT. DeepSeek's strengths in mathematical and programming tasks particularly reflect China's rapid progress in the AI field.
DeepSeek's chatbot is available for free use on web and mobile devices by anyone, and developers can also build applications based on it. The report indicates that this approach lowers the barrier to AI adoption in price-sensitive regions.
However, the use of DeepSeek is restricted in the West, and Microsoft prohibited its employees from using the software last year. On the other hand, in countries where access to US technology is limited, such as Russia, Iran, Cuba, and Belarus, the usage of DeepSeek has surged dramatically.
The rise of DeepSeek signals a shift in the global AI market landscape. Analysts predict that DeepSeek's opening up of low-cost access to high-performance models may shake the monopoly held by major US tech companies like OpenAI and Google.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1856068376579659/
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