DeepSeek experienced a major outage lasting more than seven hours over the weekend. Users reported issues on Sunday evening, after which the Chinese AI company rolled out several updates to resolve the situation. The cause remains unclear.
Downdetector recorded the first reports on Sunday evening. DeepSeek’s own status page confirmed an incident at 9:35 p.m. local time. Two hours later, the company stated that the outage had been resolved, but that wasn’t the end of it. On Monday morning, the problem returned. It wasn’t until 10:33 a.m. local time that DeepSeek resolved that second performance issue as well.
The outage is unusual for DeepSeek. According to its own status page, the company has maintained an operational uptime of nearly 99 percent since its launch in January 2025. Shortly after DeepSeek’s launch, it was hit by a cyberattack that temporarily suspended new registrations. At the time, an external attack was the cause of the disruptions. This time, the cause is unclear.
Meanwhile, speculation is mounting about a major upcoming update to DeepSeek. Since the beginning of this year, rumors have been circulating that the company is preparing for a new release. That expectation prompted competitors to respond. Around Chinese New Year, Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent launched a series of new AI models and services.
DeepSeek itself has not commented on any plans or a timeline.