Chinese AI model DeepSeek is winning over American developers and startups with prices that can be as much as 20 times cheaper than leading US alternatives such as Claude and ChatGPT, with some users reporting hourlong coding sessions costing under 50 cents compared to roughly $10 on competing platforms. San Francisco-based AI firm Lindy recently switched from Anthropic to DeepSeek, with its founder crediting the move with saving the company millions of dollars, while Microsoft is also reportedly exploring DeepSeek as a lower-cost option for its Copilot suite. Despite surging usage — DeepSeek's share of token usage on AI services platform Vercel jumped from under 1% to 17% in May — Chinese model developers face significant obstacles converting popularity into revenue, as political scrutiny, data security concerns, and geopolitical tensions make large enterprises reluctant to adopt Chinese AI directly.