DeepSeek chatbot hit by major outage, service disrupted for over 7 hours

DeepSeek’s chatbot remained offline for over seven hours in China, prompting multiple fixes, as uncertainty over the disruption comes amid growing anticipation around the company’s next major AI model upgrade.

DeepSeek’s chatbot service experienced a significant disruption in China, remaining unavailable for more than seven hours and prompting the company to roll out a series of fixes to restore normal operations. The outage, which began late Sunday evening, affected users across the country and raised concerns over service reliability.

Reports of the issue first surfaced on monitoring platforms, with users flagging difficulties accessing the chatbot. DeepSeek later acknowledged the disruption on its official status page, noting an initial problem late in the evening before briefly marking it resolved. However, further technical issues emerged the following morning, extending the downtime until late morning on Monday.

Cause remains unclear

The exact reason behind the prolonged outage has not been disclosed, and the company has yet to provide a detailed explanation. The incident stands out given DeepSeek’s strong operational record, with the platform maintaining high uptime levels since the launch of its widely adopted AI model in early 2025.

Such extended downtime is uncommon for large-scale AI services, particularly those with a rapidly growing global user base. The disruption also comes at a time when reliability and performance are critical factors in the competitive artificial intelligence market.

Growing competition and expectations

The outage coincides with heightened anticipation around DeepSeek’s next major AI release. Industry speculation suggests the company may be preparing to introduce an upgraded model, following the success of its earlier offerings.

Competition in China’s AI sector has intensified in recent months, with major players such as Alibaba Group, ByteDance, and Tencent accelerating the rollout of new AI tools and services.

Despite the temporary setback, expectations remain high for DeepSeek as it continues to position itself as a key innovator in the global AI landscape. The company, however, has remained silent on both the cause of the outage and the timeline for its next product update.