DeepSeek AI Chatbot Experiences Historic Seven-Hour Outage
New Delhi – China’s DeepSeek AI chatbot experienced its most significant operational disruption to date, with the platform unavailable for over seven hours overnight.Outage Details
Downdetector, a platform tracking service outages, reported initial user issues on Sunday evening. DeepSeek’s official status page confirmed the problem at 9:35 pm. The platform initially marked the issue as resolved at 11:38 am on Monday, but further disruptions occurred, with full resolution achieved at 10:33 am the following day.DeepSeek’s Operational History
According to DeepSeek’s status page, the platform has maintained a near 99 per cent operational record since its R1 model was unveiled in January 2025.Rise and Impact
The Chinese AI startup gained sudden popularity in January 2025, triggering a selloff in Silicon Valley tech stocks and resulting in billions of dollars in losses. Concerns arose about the potential shift in the AI landscape. However, DeepSeek’s models have not yet reached the scale of those produced by competitors such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.Allegations of Model Theft
United States-based artificial intelligence firm Anthropic recently accused three Chinese unicorns, including DeepSeek, of illegally extracting capabilities from its Claude model. Anthropic alleges the companies utilized a process known as distillation, creating approximately 24,000 fraudulent accounts to train Chinese models using over 16 million exchanges with Claude.Security Concerns
Anthropic warned that models developed through this alleged theft may lack the safety measures implemented by companies like its own and could be exploited for cyberattacks and the development of biological weapons. The company cautioned that these models could be utilized by authoritarian governments for offensive cyber operations, disinformation campaigns, and mass surveillance, emphasizing that the timeframe for addressing these concerns is limited.Disclaimer: Due care and diligence have been taken in compiling and presenting news and market-related content. However, errors or omissions may arise despite such efforts.
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