For me I was deciding between rare earths and Deepseek, and ultimately chose rare earths for it being a geopolitical leverage China has perfected since the 1st trade war, as a true trump card no one in the West knows how to respond to. And also because even if Deepseek made waves when it was first released, the lack of high end chips has slowed the roll out of R2 and even in China, netizens say the app has fallen behind Qwen nevermind the American AI apps.
But thinking over it and reading some of the responses I would now edge more torwards Deepseek. China has been a tech power for some time, but be that is it may, people outside of China always continued to doubt China's tech abilities, saying most of its products are following on the heels of Western companies. In short, nevermind America even Europeans during that period felt China was playing catch up to them and India was delusional enough to think they were only one to two steps behind China.
Beyond the immediate shock that Deepseek had at the time, I realize that the effects are still being felt to this day. Europeans and even Japanese nowadays have fully resigned themselves to the fact that China has left them in the dust technologically. SK and Taiwan perhaps still have their chip sectors, although the mood there is that even that advantage won't last long with the rate China is progressing. There are still some Indians perhaps who delude themselves into thinking they have a superior tech sector or one not far behind, but the mood amongst the sane ones is that there is no one or two steps behind, India is simply lightyears behind China in this category.
For now, Deepseek may no longer be in the AI spotlight, but in terms of history the app is the literal dividing line between the old world's view of the Chinese tech sector and how its perceived today.