For a slew of AI chip companies chomping to dethrone Nvidia, DeepSeek is the opening they’ve been waiting for.

DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup founded in 2023, shot to the top of Apple’s App Store free app chart after releasing a new open-source AI model it says rivals OpenAI's work. Its website was hit by outages amid a spike in interest.

US officials are probing whether Chinese AI startup DeepSeek bought advanced Nvidia Corp. semiconductors through third parties in Singapore, circumventing US restrictions on sales of chips used for artificial intelligence tasks,

Two U.S. Congress members are calling on President Donald Trump's administration to consider restricting the export of artificial intelligence chips made by Nvidia , alleging Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has relied on them.

Nvidia said in a statement it is "ready to work with the administration as it pursues its own approach to AI."

Donald Trump's administration is considering stricter limits on Nvidia's H20 chip sales to China, due to DeepSeek AI and growing concerns over the Asian giant's AI tech advancements. The H20 chips, compliant with US restrictions,

DeepSeek stunned the tech world with the release of its R1 "reasoning" model, matching or exceeding OpenAI's reasoning model for a fraction of the cost.

While the demand is there, it's clear that's not the sole reason why Nvidia's RTX 50 series is impossible to find in stores. Many retailers received fairly low stock quantities, as Nvidia reportedly experienced manufacturing issues.