On Monday, Chinese AI company DeepSeek announced that registration is now open exclusively to users with phone numbers from mainland China. It remains uncertain whether people with phone numbers from other regions will eventually gain access or if this restriction is only temporary.
US stocks dropped sharply on Monday, led by technology shares, as surging interest in Chinese startup DeepSeek’s low-cost artificial intelligence model raised doubts over the sector’s lofty valuations.
Tumbling global equities prompted a widespread flight to safety, with U.S. government bonds rising and safe-haven currencies – the yen and Swiss franc – surging.
DeepSeek, which overtook rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application on Apple’s App Store in the U.S., says it uses lower-cost chips and less data, challenging a widespread bet in markets that AI will drive demand along a supply chain from chipmakers to data centers.