DeepSeek, the company behind the recently popular AI app that topped download charts in the U.S. and elsewhere, has announced a significant change in its registration process. As of today, the company will only accept new registrations from users with mainland China mobile (HK: 0941 ) phone numbers. This move comes after the app experienced a service outage today due to the surge in usage.

The company's status page was updated to reflect the new registration policy, stating, "Currently, only registration with a mainland China mobile phone number is supported."

The China-based AI company caused a stir in the tech community Monday, sending AI-related tech stocks tumbling. Notably, AI giant NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA )'s stock fell by 13% amidst concerns regarding AI capital expenditure spending due to DeepSeek's efficient use of older, cheaper NVIDIA chips.

DeepSeek claims to possess only 10,000 A100 GPUs, costing a mere $6 million, although there is speculation that the company may actually be utilizing around 50,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs. However, due to U.S. export controls, the company cannot confirm this information.

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