Forget DeepSeek, Dying Alone Is China’s Latest Tech Obsession

This time last year, the hottest Chinese tech product was DeepSeek’s market-moving artificial intelligence model. In 2026, it’s something far simpler: an app for people worried about dying alone.

The bluntly named “Are You Dead?” platform rocketed to the top of the app-store charts in China before going viral globally. The interface is almost aggressively plain. Users, largely people living alone, tap to confirm they are still alive. Miss two days in a row and an emergency contact gets notified.