DeepSeek R1 AI: What it is and how it compares to ChatGPT

TLDR;

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• DeepSeek R1 AI is the latest artificial intelligence model developed by Chinese company DeepSeek

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• The AI model boasts of being better than OpenAI�s ChatGPT in terms of responses and it�s cheaper to develop

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• South Korea, Australia, and the United States are among the countries that looking to block access to DeepSeek

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The artificial intelligence battle is heating up with new entrants like DeepSeek challenging the dominance of veterans like ChatGPT. DeepSeek�s latest AI application, DeepSeek R1 AI, was released in January 2025 and quickly overshadowed OpenAI�s ChatGPT-4o. Its Chinese origin has caused jitters across countries with some like Australia, South Korea, and the United States expressing intentions to block its use within their borders. Here, we explore what DeepSeek R1 is and how it compares to ChatGPT. As a bonus, we look at why countries want to block it.

What is DeepSeek R1 AI and how is it different

DeepSeek is a Chinese AI company that develops AI apps using large language models or LLMs. Founded in 2023, it launched the DeepSeek R1 AI app in January 2025 as its first artificial intelligence app. 

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The app was developed at a cost of roughly $6 million and boasts advanced features. It uses the mixture of experts (MoE) technique, which allows it to adapt to users� requests instead of automatically unleashing all its modules regardless of the request, as is the case with other top AI apps like ChatGPT-4o, Llama3.1, and Claude-3.5.

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The MoE technique improves the efficiency of DeepSeek R1. DeepSeek R1 AI also has superior reasoning in coding and mathematical tasks. Another great feature is that the AI app is open-source. This allows independent developers to use part of its code for their own projects.

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The popularity of DeepSeek emanates partly from the fact that it was cheaper to develop compared to other AI applications and partly because China finally released a worthy competitor to AI apps developed by United States-based firms.

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According to Reuters, DeepSeek R1 is also �20 to 50 times cheaper to use than the OpenAI o1 model. �Unfortunately, not everyone believesDeepSeek�s claims of having a reduced development budget. 

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Some in the industry think that the development budget is more than $6 million. Others hold that the AI firm failed to disclose that it�s using thousands of advanced Nvidia AI chips to power the app. Surprisingly, Nvidia�s stock price plummeted by 17% removing close to $600 billion in market value after the launch of DeepSeek R1.

How does DeepSeek R1 AI compare to ChatGPT-4o?

Before diving into the differences, let's briefly look at what is ChatGPT. 

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ChatGPT is an AI app developed in 2022 to provide humanlike responses to user queries. Apart from text, it also interacts with users through voice and images. It also provides summaries and other types of information from user-provided data.

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Now to the comparison between DeepSeek R1 AI and ChatGPT-4o

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• Training cost - DeepSeek R1 cost about $6 million while ChatGPT-4o consumed roughly $100 million.

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• Scalability - ChatGPT-4o is more scalable and can adapt to a wide range of conversions compared to DeepSeek. ChatGPT-4o also supports text, voice, and image interactions, unlike DeepSeek R1 which only supports text-based interactions.

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• Efficiency - DeepSeek is more efficient than ChatGPT. Why? It uses a superior architecture known as MoE. The architecture utilizes computational resources as needed, unlike ChatGPT which unleashes its full power regardless of the task.

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• Accuracy - This is another area in which DeepSeek R1 AI shines over ChatGPT by having a higher accuracy, especially with coding and mathematical tasks. In this area, it has an accuracy of 90% against ChatGPTs 83% in mathematical tests, and a 97%-accuracy on coding-related queries.

Why are countries blocking DeepSeek R1 AI

South Korea, Italy, Taiwan, and Australia have prohibited government employees from using DeepSeek while other countries like the United States are contemplating making a similar move. These countries are worried that DeepSeek poses security risks. Governments are also skeptical about the AI app because it�s yet to disclose how it stores, uses, and generally handles users� information.

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DeepSeek�s privacy policy states that it collects users� personal information like date of birth, phone number, and email. It also stores a user�s chat history and their device�s technical information like operating system, IP address, and keystroke patterns.

Conclusion

DeepSeek R1 AI is the most downloaded artificial intelligence application on Apple�s App Store. Part of its popularity comes from the fact that its free to use, and more accurate than ChatGPT and other similar applications like Claude, Llama, and Qwen.

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However, ChatGPT beats it on scalability. According to testimonials from people who tried out the two platforms, ChatGPT is better for general conversions while DeepSeek R1 AI excels on mathematical and coding/programming-related tasks.