DeepSeek Tops App Store Charts

Massive privacy concerns, a market frenzy, and a revolution in app infrastructure.

Author

Mark Chepelyuk
January 27, 2025

Good afternoon,

📅 On This Day: January 27, 2010 - Apple introduces the iPad. The introduction of the iPad triggered the close of the PC era and marked one of the pivotal points in computing history.

Today’s TLDR:

  • DeepSeek surpasses ChatGPT as #1 free app in US

  • Meta announces $65B AI infrastructure plan

  • Perplexity revises TikTok merger offer

  • Qwen launches 1M token models

  • Chinese AI efficiency challenges US approach

Today’s Deep Dive:

Image source: App Store

📱 DeepSeek Tops App Store

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek overtakes ChatGPT as the top free app on Apple's US App Store, showcasing remarkable efficiency with minimal resources.

Key Details:

  • Uses only 2,000 Nvidia chips vs typical 16,000

  • R1 model matches industry benchmarks

  • Fraction of typical compute costs

  • Efficient resource utilization

  • Challenges traditional AI development model

  • Market is down amid large speculation

Why It Matters: DeepSeek's rise demonstrates that efficient, well-designed models can compete with tech giants' massive infrastructure investments, but the bigger issue here is privacy. Everything you send to DeepSeek via app goes straight to China. If you want to learn how to run DeepSeek locally let me know.

Image Source: Mark Zuckerberg

🏗️ Meta's Manhattan-Sized Ambition

Meta announces $60-65B capital expenditure plan for 2025, including a datacenter that could cover significant portions of Manhattan.

Key Details:

  • 1GW compute power deployment

  • 1.3M GPUs targeted by year-end

  • 70% increase from 2024 spending

  • Meta AI targeting 1B users

  • Largest AI hardware deployment globally

  • Response to growing competition

Why It Matters: Meta is trying to keep up with Stargate. Meta's massive investment highlights the contrasting approaches between US and Chinese companies in AI development - scale versus efficiency.

Image Source: Shutterstock

🤝 Perplexity's TikTok Gambit

Perplexity AI revises merger offer with TikTok US, offering 50% government ownership in ambitious deal.

Key Details:

  • "NewCo" entity valued at potential $300B

  • US government offered 50% stake

  • ByteDance keeps core algorithm

  • 75-day negotiation window

  • Competing with Musk, Oracle interests

  • Strategic timing with Trump administration

Why It Matters: A $500M startup trying to merge with a $100B social media giant might seem like a minnow trying to swallow a whale, but it's brilliantly audacious. By offering the government a controlling stake, Perplexity isn't just proposing a merger - it's rewriting the playbook for how tech companies navigate geopolitical tensions.

Image Source: Qwen

🚀 Qwen Ups Token Limits

Alibaba's Qwen team launches models with 1M token support and 7x faster processing.

Key Details:

  • 7B and 14B parameter models

  • Custom vLLM-inference framework

  • Outperforms Llama-3 and GPT-4

  • Enhanced Chat interface

  • Web search capabilities

  • Text-to-video generation features

Why It Matters: Another Chinese company demonstrates superior efficiency in AI development, challenging the assumption that massive infrastructure is necessary for cutting-edge AI.

Image Source: Getty

🌐 The Great AI Infrastructure Debate

Contrasting approaches to AI development emerge between US and Chinese companies.

Key Details:

  • US focuses on massive infrastructure

  • Chinese companies prioritize efficiency

  • OpenAI's $500B Stargate project

  • DeepSeek's minimal resource approach

  • Competition driving innovation

  • Different development philosophies

Why It Matters: The diverging strategies could determine the future of AI development and which approach - efficiency or scale - ultimately prevails.

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

That's it for today! If you’re interested in sponsoring this newsletter email [email protected] to discuss sponsorship opportunities.