DeepSeek draws more crowds than ChatGPT

Staff reporter and Reuters

Chinese artificial intelligence rising star DeepSeek has become the world's fastest-growing AI tool, surpassing OpenAI's ChatGPT in monthly new website visits.

Data from AI analytics platform aitools.xyz shows that DeepSeek recorded 525 million views last month, exceeding ChatGPT's 500 million.

The Chinese startup's market share has surged to 6.58 percent from 2.34 percent, ranking just behind after ChatGPT (43.16 percent) and Australian graphic design platform Canva (8.27 percent).

Its chatbot also secured the second spot in the chatbot market, capturing a 12.12 percent share, with a total of 792.6 million visits alongside 136.5 million unique visitors.

DeepSeek shook the global AI industry after launching an AI model in January that it said was trained with less advanced chips and was cheaper to develop than its Western rivals.

Meanwhile, China's robot rental market is booming, with daily rent for Unitree Robotics' robotic dogs ranging from 1,500 yuan (HK$1,606) to 2,800 yuan and its humanoid robots fetching up to 14,000 yuan.

Unitree launched its humanoid robot G1 last month with a starting price of 99,000 yuan, while its robotic dogs are priced between 9,997 yuan and 21,999 yuan.

In more AI news, China's Zhipu AI unveiled a free AI agent called AutoGLM Rumination, that can perform deep research, web searches, travel planning, and research report writing.

Separately, China's manufacturing activity expanded at the fastest pace in a year in March, an official factory survey showed yesterday, in a positive sign for the world's second-largest economy as it deals with an escalating US trade war.

The official purchasing managers' index was 50.5 in March versus 50.2 in February, above the 50-mark separating growth from contraction. It was the highest PMI reading since March 2024.

The non-manufacturing PMI, which includes services and construction, accelerated to 50.8 from 50.4.