In January 2025, the enormous valuations of US tech companies involved with artificial intelligence (AI) were suddenly called into question when it was reported that a previously little-known AI app from China had become the most downloaded free app on the App Store. That meant booting ChatGPT off the top spot, despite a smaller budget and restricted access to the most advanced chips from the likes of Nvidia.
Cue widespread interest in buying DeepSeek stock.
Learn if you can buy DeepSeek stock in Canada and how to get started buying AI stocks.
DeepSeek is not yet a publicly traded company and is still privately owned, so you can’t buy DeepSeek stock in Canada (or any other country) just yet. However, the surge in popularity with the release of its supposedly cheap DeepSeek R1 and V3 large language models (LLMs) has created investing opportunities. We’ll pin those down in this guide.
| Stock | Icon | 1Y performance (to Feb/26) | 5Y performance (to Feb/26) | Market cap | Buy on Qtrade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Applovin Corp (APP) |  |
28.01% | 3,478.74% (3 years) | $160 billion (USD) | |
| Grid Dynamics Holdings (GDYN) |  |
-63.39% | -40.97% | $701.3 million (USD) | |
| C3 Ai (AI) |  |
-64.88% | -92.51% | $1.5 billion (USD) | |
| Pegasystems (PEGA) |  |
-19.31% | -35.12% | $7.6 billion (USD) | |
| BigBearai Holdings (BBAI) |  |
18.87% | -2.89% (3 years) | $2.3 billion (USD) | |
| Palantir Technologies (PLTR) |  |
77.71% | 361.56% | $399.2 billion (USD) | |
| Symbotic (SYM) |  |
85.25% | 257.70% (3 years) | $32.2 billion (USD) | |
| Upstart Holdings Inc (UPST) |  |
-37.17% | -50.23% | $4.5 billion (USD) | |
| Uipath (PATH) |  |
-11.46% | -25.55% (3 years) | $7.1 billion (USD) | |
| SoundHound AI (SOUN) |  |
-40.21% | 200.00% (3 years) | $3.6 billion (USD) | |
| Rezolve AI Limited (RZLV) |  |
3.20% | 3.20% (1 year) | $958.6 million (USD) |
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI firm that uses open-source technology to create its LLM. For comparison, ChatGPT is an example of another popular LLM. Open source just means that the code and programming can be viewed by anyone, including developers and researchers, which helps add a level of transparency.
The reason DeepSeek AI has been hitting the headlines and growing in popularity is because its LLM, DeepSeek V3 (released in December 2024), has been deemed comparable to ChatGPT in terms of performance. But what’s so interesting is that it was supposedly created at a fraction of the cost, having been trained for roughly $6 million—whereas ChatGPT cost upward of $100 million.
DeepSeek R1, otherwise known as DeepThink, was released in January 2025 and is built for more advanced reasoning and complex problem-solving than its predecessor. R1’s heavier processing makes it a little slower than V3, but it’s designed to go head-to-head with OpenAI’s o1 model, which is also designed for high intelligence reasoning.
| Stock | Icon | 1Y performance (to Feb/26) | 5Y performance (to Feb/26) | Market cap | Buy on Qtrade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) |  |
59.18% | 253.15% | $4.6 trillion (USD) | |
| Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) |  |
3.67% | 77.07% | $3.6 trillion (USD) | |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) |  |
57.92% | 159.26% | $1.7 trillion (USD) | |
| Oracle Corporation (ORCL) |  |
-3.22% | 164.73% | $485.6 billion (USD) | |
| Amazon.com (AMZN) |  |
0.68% | 44.48% | $2.6 trillion (USD) | |
| Alphabet Class A (GOOGL) |  |
65.67% | 228.33% | $4.1 trillion (USD) | |
| Broadcom (AVGO) |  |
49.73% | 612.18% | $1.5 trillion (USD) | |
| Vertiv Holdings Co (VRT) |  |
59.10% | 826.73% | $71.2 billion (USD) | |
| Arm Holdings plc (ARM) |  |
-33.96% | 48.39% (2 years) | $121.9 billion (USD) | |
| ASML Holding NV ADR (ASML) |  |
92.48% | 162.11% | $548.6 billion (USD) | |
| Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) |  |
104.17% | 169.35% | $396.6 billion (USD) | |
| Tesla (TSLA) |  |
6.38% | 51.08% | $1.6 trillion (USD) | |
| Marvell Technology (MRVL) |  |
-30.07% | 54.41% | $70.5 billion (USD) |
Because DeepSeek is not a publicly traded company, it has not publicly issued stock for investors to buy and sell. Therefore, there is no DeepSeek stock price.
"DeepSeek’s V3 LLM isn’t necessarily better than OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, reports suggest that it is pretty comparable in terms of performance and speed.
What’s interesting about this, and the reason everyone is surprised, is due to the lower costs involved. Although, it’s worth keeping in mind that these extremely low-cost figures haven’t yet been independently verified.
We’re likely to see OpenAI fight back with a vengeance, and it’s going to have to if it wants to justify its high costs if equivalent technology can be created in China for just a sliver of the cost."
At the moment, you can’t buy DeepSeek stock or OpenAI stock. However, the AI tech that’s being released is still likely to have an impact on the stock market, and firms linked with any part of the AI ecosystem and supply chain could see periods of volatility as these firms battle it out.
We’re still in the early days for DeepSeek AI, and it’s hard to gauge how successful the firm will be. But it goes to show that the stock market is very sensitive at the moment, and it could be a sign that we may get some dips and possible buying opportunities over the coming months and years.
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