DeepSeek Vs ChatGPT

Chinese AI development firm DeepSeek has disrupted that notion. On Jan. 20, 2025, DeepSeek released its R1 LLM at a fraction of the cost that other vendors incurred in their own developments. DeepSeek is also providing its R1 models under an open source license, enabling free use.

Within days of its release, the DeepSeek AI assistant -- a mobile app that provides a chatbot interface for DeepSeek R1 -- hit the top of Apple's App Store chart, outranking OpenAI's ChatGPT mobile app. The meteoric rise of DeepSeek in terms of usage and popularity triggered a stock market sell-off on Jan. 27, 2025, as investors cast doubt on the value of large AI vendors based in the U.S., including Nvidia. Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Oracle, Broadcom and other tech giants also saw significant drops as investors reassessed AI valuations.

What is DeepSeek?

DeepSeek is an AI development firm based in Hangzhou, China. The company was founded by Liang Wenfeng, a graduate of Zhejiang University, in May 2023. Wenfeng also co-founded High-Flyer, a China-based quantitative hedge fund that owns DeepSeek. Currently, DeepSeek operates as an independent AI research lab under the umbrella of High-Flyer. The full amount of funding and the valuation of DeepSeek have not been publicly disclosed.

DeepSeek focuses on developing open source LLMs. The company's first model was released in November 2023. The company has iterated multiple times on its core LLM and has built out several different variations. However, it wasn't until January 2025 after the release of its R1 reasoning model that the company became globally famous.

The company provides multiple services for its models, including a web interface, mobile application and API access.

DeepSeek large language models :

Since the company was created in 2023, DeepSeek has released a series of generative AI models. With each new generation, the company has worked to advance both the capabilities and performance of its models :

DeepSeek Coder : Released in November 2023, this is the company's first open source model designed specifically for coding-related tasks.

DeepSeek LLM : Released in December 2023, this is the first version of the company's general-purpose model.

DeepSeek-V2 : Released in May 2024, this is the second version of the company's LLM, focusing on strong performance and lower training costs.

DeepSeek-Coder-V2 : Released in July 2024, this is a 236 billion-parameter model offering a context window of 128,000 tokens, designed for complex coding challenges.

DeepSeek-V3 : Released in December 2024, DeepSeek-V3 uses a mixture-of-experts architecture, capable of handling a range of tasks. The model has 671 billion parameters with a context length of 128,000.

DeepSeek-R1 : Released in January 2025, this model is based on DeepSeek-V3 and is focused on advanced reasoning tasks directly competing with OpenAI's o1 model in performance, while maintaining a significantly lower cost structure. Like DeepSeek-V3, the model has 671 billion parameters with a context length of 128,000.

Janus-Pro-7B : Released in January 2025, Janus-Pro-7B is a vision model that can understand and generate images.

Why it is raising alarms in the U.S :

The release of DeepSeek-R1 has raised alarms in the U.S., triggering concerns and a stock market sell-off in tech stocks. On Monday, Jan. 27, 2025, the Nasdaq Composite dropped by 3.4% at market opening, with Nvidia declining by 17% and losing approximately $600 billion in market capitalization.

DeepSeek is raising alarms in the U.S. for several reasons, including the following:

Cost disruption : DeepSeek claims to have developed its R1 model for less than $6 million. The low-cost development threatens the business model of U.S. tech companies that have invested billions in AI. DeepSeek is also cheaper for users than OpenAI.

Technical achievement despite restrictions : The export of the highest-performance AI accelerator and GPU chips from the U.S. is restricted to China. Yet, despite that, DeepSeek has demonstrated that leading-edge AI development is possible without access to the most advanced U.S. technology.

Business model threat : In contrast with OpenAI, which is proprietary technology, DeepSeek is open source and free, challenging the revenue model of U.S. companies charging monthly fees for AI services.

Geopolitical concerns : Being based in China, DeepSeek challenges U.S. technological dominance in AI. Tech investor Marc Andreessen called it AI's "Sputnik moment," comparing it to the Soviet Union's space race breakthrough in the 1950s.

What’s so Unique about DeepSeek?

Here are some important points which makes DeepSeek unique compared to other LLMs.

The first and most important point is that DeepSeek is a Chinese company. Other AI models, for example ChatGPT, LLaMA etc. are mainly trained on English. But DeepSeek is trained on both Chinese and English data. This makes DeepSeek a true multilingual AI model, specially making it better for Chinese people.

Some other important points are :

* As of now, DeepSeek is free.

* Unlike OpenAI or others, DeepSeek makes its AI algorithms, models, and training details open source. This allows anyone to view its code, design documents, use it’s code or even modify it freely.

DeepSeek-Coder :

DeepSeek-Coder is one of AI model by DeepSeek, which is focussed on writing codes.

Here are some important points about the DeepSeek-Coder

* It is available for free. Check the last section of blog for links.

* DeepSeek-Code is pretrained on 2 Trillion tokens over more than 80 programming languages.

* It supports all important programming languages, for example Python, Java, C++ , .Net etc.

* It is claimed to be better than GPT 4 and Llama in generating code.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot from OpenAI that enables users to "converse" with it in a way that mimics natural conversation. As a user, you can ask questions or make requests in the form of prompts, and ChatGPT will respond. The intuitive, easy-to-use, and free tool has already gained popularity as an alternative to traditional search engines and as a tool for AI writing, among other things.  

What does GPT stand for?

The "GPT" in ChatGPT is short for generative pre-trained transformer. In the field of AI, training refers to the process of teaching a computer system to recognize patterns and make decisions based on input data, much like how a teacher gives information to their students, then tests their understanding of that information.

A transformer is a type of neural network trained to analyze the context of input data and weight the significance of each part of the data accordingly. Since this type of model learns context, it's commonly used in natural language processing (NLP) to generate text similar to human writing. (In AI, a model is a set of mathematical equations and algorithms that a computer uses to analyze data and make decisions. Read more about some common machine learning models here.)

While older AI chatbots could answer questions with detailed responses, ChatGPT uses a dialog format, which allows it to answer follow-up and clarifying questions, as well as recognize and reject inappropriate or dangerous requests (such as questions about illegal activity).

ChatGPT being an existing leader, has some benefits over DeepSeek.

* ChatGPT is widely used across the world and supports multiple languages. Almost every professional in the world currently uses ChatGPT.

* OpenAI has built a robust ecosystem around ChatGPT, including APIs, plugins, and partnerships with major tech companies like Microsoft.

* ChatGPT has a strong brand recognition. It is s a household name in AI world with trust among users.

* ChatGPT has a large and active developer community, contributing to its continuous improvement and innovation.

Pros and Cons of DeepSeek and ChatGPT

Understanding the strengths and limitations of each AI model is important for making an informed choice. Here, I have highlighted the key advantages and drawbacks of both DeepSeek and ChatGPT, based on user usage and performance data.

Feature	DeepSeek	ChatGPT
Pros	Open-source and cost-effective	Strong contextual understanding and refined language generation
	Efficient for coding and technical tasks	Reliable for general research and writing tasks
	Faster response times for structured queries	Better integration with multimodal capabilities (e.g. images voice)
	Superior performance in mathematical computations	More user-friendly interface
	Lower resource requirements	Consistent performance across various tasks
Cons	Potential biases in politically sensitive topics	Subscription required for premium access
	Requires more verification for complex responses	Higher computational costs
	Less intuitive interface for casual users	Message limits on free usage
	Stricter content moderation policies	Can be slower for technical computations

As this comparison demonstrates, the choice between DeepSeek and ChatGPT largely depends on your specific needs - whether you prioritize technical performance and cost-efficiency or prefer a more user-friendly experience with broader capabilities. Keep in mind that both platforms are actively evolving, and these characteristics may change as new updates and features are released.

Which AI Should You Use?

When choosing between DeepSeek and ChatGPT, the decision ultimately comes down to your specific needs. Let's break down which tool might work best for different user profiles.

For technical users and developers :

If you're focused on coding, data analysis, and technical documentation, DeepSeek offers compelling advantages. Its open-source nature allows for customization and integration into your development workflow, while its cost-effectiveness makes it particularly attractive for individual developers or small teams. However, be prepared to implement additional verification steps for complex analyses and be aware of potential limitations in handling politically sensitive data topics.

For general users, businesses, and content creators :

If you're working in a business environment or need to create content that explains data concepts to stakeholders, ChatGPT might be your better choice. Its refined language generation and user-friendly interface make it excellent for creating documentation, reports, and presentations. The consistent performance across various tasks means you can rely on it for both technical and non-technical communication.

For privacy-conscious users :

For those working with sensitive data or in regulated industries, ChatGPT's adherence to Western data protection standards makes it the safer choice, as I mentioned earlier. While both tools have their privacy considerations, ChatGPT's more transparent data handling policies and stricter compliance with international privacy regulations make it more suitable for professional environments where data security is paramount.

The key is to align your choice with your primary use case: If you're focused on technical development and cost isn't a major constraint, DeepSeek's capabilities might serve you well. However, if you need a more versatile tool that can handle both technical and communication tasks while maintaining high privacy standards, ChatGPT would be the more appropriate choice.

Feature	DeepSeek	ChatGPT	Winner
Model Architecture	Uses MoE approach with selective parameter activation	Traditional transformer model with consistent performance	Both (different strengths)
Data Visualization	Concise fact-driven outputs	Rich contextual presentations with better formatting	ChatGPT
Technical Performance	Superior in mathematics and coding tasks	Strong general performance across tasks	DeepSeek
User Experience	Technical interface requiring expertise	User-friendly interface with broad accessibility	ChatGPT
Cost Efficiency	Open-source and free to use	Subscription-based with usage limits	DeepSeek
Data Privacy	Some compliance concerns, stricter content moderation	Strong Western privacy standards and compliance	ChatGPT
Customization	Extensive but requires technical expertise	Limited but user-friendly options	DeepSeek
Response Speed	Faster for structured queries	Consistent but can be slower for technical tasks	DeepSeek
Collaboration Features	Basic sharing capabilities	Strong integration and sharing features	ChatGPT
Documentation Quality	Precise but technical	Comprehensive and well-explained	ChatGPT