Chinese startup DeepSeek has achieved a remarkable milestone by overtaking its competitor ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application on Apple’s App Store in the United States. This accomplishment was announced on Monday and comes as the company’s artificial intelligence Assistant, powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model, gained significant traction among U.S. users since its release on January 10.

The DeepSeek-V3 model is claimed by its developers to be the leading contender among open-source models and to rival some of the most advanced closed-source models in the world. This achievement has raised eyebrows in Silicon Valley, challenging established beliefs regarding the United States’ dominance in artificial intelligence and questioning the effectiveness of Washington’s export controls aimed at curtailing China’s advanced chip and AI capabilities.

AI models, including both DeepSeek and ChatGPT, rely on sophisticated chips for their training processes. Since 2021, the Biden administration has expanded its ban on the export of these chips to China, restricting their use in training AI models developed by Chinese firms. However, researchers from DeepSeek recently stated in a paper that they utilized Nvidia’s H800 chips for training, with expenses totaling less than $6 million. This assertion has sparked debate, particularly regarding the power of the chips used compared to the advanced Nvidia products that the U.S. has sought to prevent from reaching China, prompting U.S. tech executives to reevaluate the effectiveness of these export controls.

Despite being a small startup founded in 2023 in Hangzhou, little is known about DeepSeek itself. The company emerged shortly after Baidu, a leading search engine giant, introduced the first Chinese AI large-language model. Since then, numerous Chinese tech companies have developed their own AI models, but DeepSeek stands out as the first to receive accolades from the U.S. tech industry for potentially matching or even exceeding the performance levels of cutting-edge American models.