DeepSeek AI, a Chinese startup founded by Liang Wenfeng in December 2023, has quickly risen to prominence, becoming the top free app in the Apple App Store and surpassing OpenAI's ChatGPT.
The startup's rapid popularity has had a significant market impact, contributing to a staggering loss of nearly $400 billion from NVIDIA's market capitalization.
Remarkably, DeepSeek AI was developed with only $6 million in investment, a fraction of the over $100 million that went into creating OpenAI's ChatGPT.
In January 2025, the company launched the DeepSeek R1 model, which is designed for tasks similar to other AI chatbots, emphasizing efficiency.
However, the startup has faced scrutiny regarding its data handling practices and its acquisition of high-performance NVIDIA chips, especially in light of U.S. export restrictions.
Despite its impressive performance, DeepSeek AI notably avoids answering politically sensitive questions, such as those related to Arunachal Pradesh.
For users concerned about privacy, DeepSeek AI can be run locally on Windows and Mac, ensuring that data remains private and is not sent to external servers.
To enhance user experience, DeepSeek AI can be operated through LM Studio or Ollama, which provide options for local deployment.
To use LM Studio, users need to download the software, search for the DeepSeek R1 Distill (Qwen 7B) model, and load it in the chat window.
Alternatively, users can utilize Ollama by installing the software and executing specific commands in the terminal to load various sizes of the DeepSeek AI model.
