Why DeepSeek’s Explosive Growth Is Redefining AI, Cloud, and Chip Ecosystems

As of February 4, DeepSeek set a new record: only 20 days after launch, its daily active users surpassed 20 million, reaching 23% of ChatGPT’s daily active users, with nearly 5 million downloads per day, demonstrating strong technical appeal and market potential.

Following this consumer surge, major Chinese cloud providers quickly joined the support lineup. Alibaba Cloud and Baidu Intelligent Cloud announced support for DeepSeek‑V3 and DeepSeek‑R1 models, with Baidu also publishing input and output pricing. Huawei Cloud and Tencent Cloud have already added support, meaning all four domestic cloud giants now officially back DeepSeek, alongside overseas providers such as AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Chip manufacturers also responded rapidly. Among the global trio—NVIDIA, Intel, AMD—AMD was the most proactive, integrating DeepSeek‑V3 into its Instinct MI300X GPU as early as January 25. NVIDIA later released a preview of its NIM micro‑service for DeepSeek‑R1, capable of processing 3 872 tokens per second on the HGX H200 system, while Intel announced that DeepSeek can run on Intel‑based AI PCs, including the new Core Ultra 200H platform.

Domestically, Huawei’s Ascend AI chips and GPU startup Moer Thread have partnered with Gitee AI to deploy the full DeepSeek‑R1 Qwen distilled model suite on Moer Thread’s KuAE GPU clusters, enabling distributed deployment of V3, R1, and next‑generation distilled models.

On February 2, the first four smaller‑scale models (1.5B, 7B, 14B, 32B) were launched on the indigenous MuXi Cloud GPU, achieving a fully domestic AI stack from silicon to platform. TianShu ZhiXin and Moer Thread also announced support, with TianShu ZhiXin completing DeepSeek‑R1 adaptation in one day and offering multiple distilled services, emphasizing deeper integration of domestic GPUs with deep‑learning frameworks to reduce reliance on foreign hardware.

Conclusion

DeepSeek’s founder Liang Wenfeng emphasized that the goal is to push the frontier of technology and foster an ecosystem where DeepSeek provides foundational models while other companies build B2B and B2C solutions on top of them.

Prominent Chinese biologist Rao Yi recently highlighted DeepSeek as a major technological shock since the Opium Wars, underscoring its global impact and the critical juncture of AI competition between China and the United States.

As noted by Fu Cong, collaboration—not bans—is essential for the two leading AI nations to bridge the digital divide and ensure equitable benefits for the global South.