DeepSeek has decided to limit access to its service after facing overwhelming demand. Just weeks after making a major impact on the tech industry, the Chinese-origin AI model has experienced an unexpected surge in usage. As a result, DeepSeek announced that it will temporarily stop allowing credit purchases for its API due to server capacity issues.
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According to a Bloomberg report, DeepSeek has suspended credit refills to prevent further service disruptions. However, the suspension is temporary and will not affect users who have already purchased credits, as they can continue using them until they run out. DeepSeek has not provided a timeline for when credit refills will be available again.
“Due to current server resource limitations, we have temporarily suspended API service top-ups to avoid any potential impact on its operations,” the website states. “Existing balances can still be used for calls. We appreciate your understanding!”
The suspension follows DeepSeek’s announcement of a historic price cut. While the AI model is free for consumers, those wanting to integrate it into their apps must pay a fee for 1M tokens. The company offered a 50% discount on its chat and reasoning models, which has reportedly increased demand.
DeepSeek is facing performance issues due to its infrastructure.
The suspension of credit purchases indicates that the AI model is becoming extremely popular. While this might seem like a positive sign, it actually highlights that the company is not expanding its server infrastructure quickly enough to keep up with growing customer demand.
Some developers who have integrated DeepSeek R1 support into their chatbots report significant cost savings. Theo Browne, CEO of Ping, shared that the model has cost 25 times less than what they pay for Claude 3.5 Sonnet, while delivering significantly better results.
To make matters worse, DeepSeek has also been targeted by large-scale malicious attacks, including one in late January that prevented new registrations. Currently, the service status on the web and API is marked as “Performance Degraded.” This means that queries will take up to 100 times longer to return a response than usual.
While there is no clear solution yet, DeepSeek has confirmed it will continue monitoring the situation to implement a fix. In the meantime, users can consider using alternatives like ChatGPT, Gemini, or other available AI models.