Иллюстрация: AI Economy Institute.
Fifty-six percent of AI users in Belarus chose the Chinese DeepSeek system in the second half of 2025, according to a report by Microsoft’s Institute for the Economics of Artificial Intelligence. This figure is higher only in China.
“One of the most unexpected developments of 2025 was the rise of DeepSeek — a new player in the AI market that surprised the industry with a flagship model capable of competing with leading American systems,” the researchers stated.
According to them, the key feature of the project was openness: DeepSeek released all models under the MIT licence, allowing developers worldwide to study, adapt and build on its core engine — an approach that immediately resonated with open-source communities.
In addition, DeepSeek offered a completely free chatbot for web and mobile platforms. The absence of subscriptions or payment requirements significantly lowered the entry barrier for millions of users, especially in price-sensitive regions. In the same spirit of openness, the company invited independent researchers in September 2025 to conduct extensive performance testing with the aim of publishing in Nature — an unusually high level of transparency for a new AI project, the report notes.
The combination of openness and accessibility allowed DeepSeek to strengthen its position in markets underserved by Western AI platforms. Adoption rates remained low in North America and Europe, while usage surged in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Belarus and across Africa — regions where U.S. services face restrictions or where access to foreign technologies is limited. In Africa, in particular, use of DeepSeek is estimated to be two to four times higher than in other parts of the world. Conversely, in countries where local needs are already met by established alternatives, such as Israel and South Korea, the platform’s presence remains minimal.
This pattern is explained by several factors. DeepSeek’s free service removed financial barriers typical of Western models, including the need for credit cards or paid upgrades. Moreover, Chinese tech companies — including DeepSeek itself and infrastructure partners such as Huawei — actively promoted and implemented the platform in African markets through partnerships, user-acquisition campaigns and integration with telecommunications services. DeepSeek benefited from being open, free and strategically distributed in regions often excluded from the first wave of AI deployment. This dynamic also illustrates how open-source AI can serve as a geopolitical tool, expanding China’s influence where Western platforms cannot operate effectively, the researchers believe.
From a governance perspective, the rise of DeepSeek demonstrates that global AI adoption is determined not only by model quality but also by access and service availability. Users gravitate toward platforms that reflect their economic, linguistic and political context. The rapid spread of an open-source model also raises questions about standards and safety, as such systems can scale with limited oversight. Nevertheless, DeepSeek has clearly lowered the entry barrier for millions of people, suggesting that the next billion AI users may emerge not in traditional tech centres but in Global South countries — thanks to open-source innovation, the report concludes.