Pioneering chatbot of Deepseek ‘affected by cyber attack’

This article was last updated on January 28, 2025

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Pioneering chatbot of Deepseek ‘affected by cyber attack’

The Chinese AI company Deepseek reports to have been hit by a cyber attack yesterday. As a result, new users could not register, even though existing users did not bother.

Deepseek spoke of A “large -scale, malignant attack” without going into detail about how it was performed or who might be behind it. After a few hours the problem was resolved.

In recent days Deepseek caused a fuss In the chip world and in the financial markets. The company says it has succeeded in creating a chatbot that is comparable to Western alternatives for a fraction of the prize. Instead of the tens of millions that Google and OpenAi took off for their variant, less than 6 million euros would have been needed for Deepseek.

‘Sputnik moment’

That would mean that the algorithm needed much less of the expensive chips that use AI models to process large quantities of data. That would be a considerable breakthrough in the affordability of AI technology. Moreover, China would have made a major overtaking compared to the West, despite import restrictions on most advanced chips that would be indispensable for AI technology.

Tech vestor Marc Andreessen speaks of a Sputnik moment on X, because The launch of the first satellite Due to the Soviet Union, a similar shock wave of bewilderment brought about in the West. OpenAi chief Sam Altman admitted that Deepseek is “impressive, especially when you see what they deliver for that price”.

The Deepseek claims therefore caused the last few days a fall in price For companies in the chip industry, because as a deep chat is indeed more efficient with computer chips, which companies will notice in their turnover. Dutch players such as ASML and ASM International fell around 10 percent on the Amsterdam stock exchange, the American Nvidia lost 500 billion in market value.

Censorship

Deepseek can be found in the App stores of Apple and Google since the beginning of this year. At Apple it is now the most downloaded free app. For the chatbot, a user does not have to take out a subscription, as is necessary for Chatgpt for certain functions, for example.

Experts warn to fit with which information you ‘reveal’ to the app: Just like with other chatbots, you do not know exactly what the companies do with the information entered and it is therefore wise not to send sensitive data.

Moreover, the Chinese app appears to be limited by communist censorship: to a question from the NOS about the bloody down of student protests in 1989, the latest version of the chatbot could not find any information. “Let’s talk about math, programming and logic instead!”