China's ChatGPT AI Competitor Becomes Tops in App Store

­In case you haven’t kept up with AI in the consumer world, a Chinese competitor to ChatGPT just came out, and it’s been making a huge splash.

In about 2 weeks, DeepSeek-R1 has already supplanted ChatGPT atop Apple’s app store, causing stocks of AI-connected companies to plummet, with NVIDIA, Oracle, Palantir dipping 11%, 8%, and 5%, respectively.

I haven’t tinkered with DeepSeek yet, but at least superficially, it appears that – even in the realm of artificial intelligence – China is able to produce knockoffs that are at least passably similar and a great deal cheaper.

Indeed, DeepSeek apparently only took about 2 months to build, at a comparatively scant $6 million, using cheaper and lower-powered NVIDIA H800 GPUs.

Oh, and it was timed to coincide exactly with the inauguration of President Trump, who’s always been hawkish towards China and has promised renewed rounds of sanctions and tariffs for the People’s Republic.

In his first 36 hours in office, Trump had also announced the $500 million Project Stargate, the “largest AI infrastructure project in history,” aimed at growing and maintaining America’s lead in AI.

Though with even Elon Musk questioning the financials of Stargate and China able to produce a ChatGPT competitor so quickly, easily, and most importantly, cheaply, one wonders if the PRC won’t just match the fiscal commitment of Stargate or accomplish more (or something passably similar) with less.