DeepSeek AI has emerged as a major competitor to OpenAI, offering a low-cost, efficient AI chatbot that has soared to the top of the Apple App Store. Founded in China, DeepSeek’s compute-efficient AI models, aggressive pricing, and open-source approach have disrupted the industry. With AI advancements like DeepSeek-R1 for reasoning tasks and Janus Pro for AI image generation, the startup is reshaping the global AI race—but also raising concerns about cybersecurity, U.S. AI leadership, and regulatory oversight.