A little over two weeks ago, a largely unknown China-based company named DeepSeek stunned the AI world with the release of an open source AI chatbot that had simulated reasoning capabilities that were largely on par with those from market leader OpenAI.

DeepSeek AI app for iPhone and Android has been caught sending unencrypted data to servers in China. You'd best avoid the mobile apps.

The chatbot app from artificial intelligence (AI) sensation DeepSeek has overtaken Doubao, the equivalent product from TikTok parent ByteDance, as China's most popular AI app, reflecting the continuing widespread interest in the Hangzhou-based start-up.