DeepSeek limits signups for AI chatbot amid malicious attack claims

DeepSeek said it’s restricting signups for new users to people with a mainland China telephone number, claiming that its system had been targeted in “large-scale malicious attacks.”

DeepSeek’s services have been overwhelmed with demand since the weekend after it unveiled an artificial intelligence chatbot that it says can rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT and was developed at a fraction of the cost of competing products.