DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence startup behind one of the world’s most widely used chatbots, suffered its longest-ever service disruption, leaving users unable to access the platform for more than seven hours. The incident marks the largest operational setback since the company’s debut.
The outage began on the evening of March 29, when users across China reported widespread access issues. According to Downdetector data, disruptions started around 9:35 p.m. local time. DeepSeek’s official status page confirmed service interruptions and initially marked the problem as resolved after two hours. However, performance issues persisted through the night, with service fully restored only by 10:33 a.m. Beijing time the following day.
Reuters reported that DeepSeek’s monitoring page classified the event as a “major outage,” lasting a total of seven hours and thirteen minutes. The company did not provide a cause for the disruption in public statements, and no comment was issued to media outlets, including Bloomberg, which noted the rarity of such an extended service failure.
The event stands out given DeepSeek’s strong operational track record. Since the launch of its R1 model in January 2025, the service has maintained close to 99 percent uptime. While the company’s developer API previously experienced day-long interruptions at the height of the R1 model’s viral adoption, the consumer-facing chatbot had not recorded any outage of comparable length.
DeepSeek achieved rapid global recognition following the release of its R1 model, which quickly became one of the most downloaded AI applications on the U.S. App Store, surpassing major competitors. The latest disruption underscores the increasing operational complexity of maintaining large-scale AI platforms as user growth accelerates worldwide.
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