What is China’s DeepSeek and why is it freaking out the AI world?
DeepSeek triggered a US market rout with its breakthrough AI models that offer comparable performance to the world’s best chatbots at seemingly a fraction of the cost.
(Traditional Chinese writings)
中國的 DeepSeek 是什麼？
DeepSeek 以其突破性的人工智慧模型引發了美國市場的潰敗，這些模型以看似世界上最好的聊天機器人的一小部分成本提供了可比的性能。
DeepSeek triggered a US market rout with its breakthrough AI models that offer comparable performance to the world’s best chatbots at seemingly a fraction of the cost.
(Simplified Chinese writings)
什么是中国的 DeepSeek？为什么它会让人工智能世界震惊？
DeepSeek 凭借其突破性的人工智能模型引发了美国市场的崩溃，这些模型的性能与世界上最好的聊天机器人相当，但成本似乎只是其中的一小部分。
Bengaluru - DeepSeek, a Chinese AI start-up that is just over a year old, has stirred awe and consternation in Silicon Valley after demonstrating breakthrough artificial intelligence (AI) models that offer comparable performance to the world’s best chatbots at seemingly a fraction of the cost.
DeepSeek’s emergence may offer a counterpoint to the belief that the future of AI will require ever-increasing amounts of power and energy to develop.
Global technology stocks tumbled as hype around DeepSeek’s innovation snowballed and investors began to digest the implications for its US-based rivals and hardware suppliers.
What exactly is DeepSeek?
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Mr Liang Wenfeng, the chief of AI-driven quant hedge fund High-Flyer. The company develops AI models that are open source, meaning the developer community at large can inspect and improve the software. Its mobile app surged to the top of iPhone download charts in the US after its release in early January.
The app distinguishes itself from other chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT by articulating its reasoning before delivering a response to a prompt.
The company claims its new AI model, R1, offers performance on a par with OpenAI’s latest and has granted licence for individuals interested in developing chatbots using the technology to build on it.
How does DeepSeek’s R1 compare with OpenAI or Meta AI?
Though not fully detailed by the company, the cost of training and developing DeepSeek’s models appears to be only a fraction of what is required for OpenAI or Meta Platforms’ best products.
The model’s much-better efficiency puts into question the need for vast expenditures of capital to acquire the latest and most powerful AI accelerators from the likes of Nvidia. That amplifies attention on US export curbs of such advanced semiconductors to China, which were intended to prevent a breakthrough of the sort that DeepSeek appears to represent.
DeepSeek says R1 is near or better than rival models in several leading benchmarks such as AIME 2024 for mathematical tasks: MMLU for general knowledge and AlpacaEval 2.0 for question-and-answer performance. It ranks among the top performers on a UC Berkeley-affiliated leaderboard called Chatbot Arena.
What’s raising alarm in the US?
Washington has banned the export of high-end technologies like GPU semiconductors to China, in a bid to stall the country’s advances in AI, the key frontier in the US-China contest for tech supremacy. But DeepSeek’s progress suggests Chinese AI engineers have worked their way around the restrictions, focusing on greater efficiency with limited resources.
While it is unclear how much advanced AI-training hardware DeepSeek has had access to, the company has showed enough to suggest the trade restrictions have not been entirely effective in stymieing the country’s progress.
When did DeepSeek spark global interest?
The AI developer has been closely watched since the release of its earliest model in 2023. It gave the world a glimpse of its DeepSeek R1 model, designed to mimic human thinking. That model underpins its mobile chatbot app, which together with the web interface in January became known as a much cheaper OpenAI alternative, with investor Marc Andreessen calling it “AI’s Sputnik moment”.
OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman said on X: “DeepSeek’s R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price.”
The DeepSeek mobile app was downloaded 1.6 million times by Jan 25 and ranked No. 1 in iPhone app stores in Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, the US and Britain, according to market tracker App Figures.
Who is DeepSeek’s founder?
Born in Guangdong in 1985, Mr Liang received bachelor’s and masters’ degrees in electronic and information engineering from Zhejiang University. He founded DeepSeek in 2023 with 10 million yuan (S$1.9 million) in registered capital, according to company database Tianyancha.
The bottleneck for further advances is not more fund-raising, he told Chinese media outlet 36kr, but US restrictions on access to the best chips.
Most of his top researchers were fresh graduates from top Chinese universities, he said, stressing the need for China to develop its own domestic ecosystem.
“More investment does not necessarily lead to more innovation. Otherwise, large companies would take over all innovation,” Mr Liang said.
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Where does DeepSeek stand in China’s AI landscape?
China’s technology leaders, from Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu to Tencent Holdings, have poured significant money and resources into the race to acquire hardware and customers for their AI ventures.
Alongside chief executive Kai-Fu Lee’s 01.AI start-up, DeepSeek stands out with its open-source approach – which is designed to recruit the largest number of users quickly before developing monetisation strategies.
Because DeepSeek’s models are more affordable, it has played a role in helping to drive down costs for AI developers in China, where the bigger players have engaged in a price war that has seen successive waves of price cuts over the past 1½ years.
What are the implications for the global AI marketplace?
DeepSeek’s success may push OpenAI and US providers to lower pricing to maintain their established lead.
It calls into question the vast spending by companies like Meta and Microsoft – each of which has committed to capital expenditure of US$65 billion (S$87.7 billion) or more this year, largely on AI infrastructure – if more efficient models can also compete with a much smaller outlay.
That roiled global stock markets as investors sold off companies like Nvidia and ASML Holding that have benefited from booming demand for AI services.
Shares in Chinese names linked to DeepSeek, such as Iflytek, climbed.
Developers around the world are already experimenting with DeepSeek’s software to build tools with it. That could quicken the adoption of advanced AI reasoning models – while potentially touching off additional concern about the need for guardrails around their use. DeepSeek’s advances may hasten regulation to control how AI is developed.
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What are DeepSeek’s shortcomings?
Like all other Chinese AI models, DeepSeek self-censors on topics deemed sensitive in China. It deflects queries about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests or geopolitically fraught questions such as the possibility of China invading Taiwan.
In tests, the DeepSeek bot is capable of giving detailed responses about political figures like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but declines to do so about Chinese President Xi Jinping.
DeepSeek’s cloud infrastructure is likely to be tested by its sudden popularity.
It also briefly experienced a major outage on Jan 27 and will have to manage even more traffic as new and returning users pour more queries into its chatbot.
What is China’s DeepSeek and why is it freaking out the AI world?
Bengaluru - DeepSeek, a Chinese AI start-up that is just over a year old, has stirred awe and consternation in Silicon Valley after demonstrating breakthrough artificial intelligence (AI) models that offer comparable performance to the world’s best chatbots at seemingly a fraction of the cost.
DeepSeek’s emergence may offer a counterpoint to the belief that the future of AI will require ever-increasing amounts of power and energy to develop.
Global technology stocks tumbled as hype around DeepSeek’s innovation snowballed and investors began to digest the implications for its US-based rivals and hardware suppliers.
What exactly is DeepSeek?
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Mr Liang Wenfeng, the chief of AI-driven quant hedge fund High-Flyer. The company develops AI models that are open source, meaning the developer community at large can inspect and improve the software. Its mobile app surged to the top of iPhone download charts in the US after its release in early January.
The app distinguishes itself from other chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT by articulating its reasoning before delivering a response to a prompt.
The company claims its new AI model, R1, offers performance on a par with OpenAI’s latest and has granted licence for individuals interested in developing chatbots using the technology to build on it.
How does DeepSeek’s R1 compare with OpenAI or Meta AI?
Though not fully detailed by the company, the cost of training and developing DeepSeek’s models appears to be only a fraction of what is required for OpenAI or Meta Platforms’ best products.
The model’s much-better efficiency puts into question the need for vast expenditures of capital to acquire the latest and most powerful AI accelerators from the likes of Nvidia. That amplifies attention on US export curbs of such advanced semiconductors to China, which were intended to prevent a breakthrough of the sort that DeepSeek appears to represent.
DeepSeek says R1 is near or better than rival models in several leading benchmarks such as AIME 2024 for mathematical tasks: MMLU for general knowledge and AlpacaEval 2.0 for question-and-answer performance. It ranks among the top performers on a UC Berkeley-affiliated leaderboard called Chatbot Arena.
What’s raising alarm in the US?
Washington has banned the export of high-end technologies like GPU semiconductors to China, in a bid to stall the country’s advances in AI, the key frontier in the US-China contest for tech supremacy. But DeepSeek’s progress suggests Chinese AI engineers have worked their way around the restrictions, focusing on greater efficiency with limited resources.
While it is unclear how much advanced AI-training hardware DeepSeek has had access to, the company has showed enough to suggest the trade restrictions have not been entirely effective in stymieing the country’s progress.
When did DeepSeek spark global interest?
The AI developer has been closely watched since the release of its earliest model in 2023. It gave the world a glimpse of its DeepSeek R1 model, designed to mimic human thinking. That model underpins its mobile chatbot app, which together with the web interface in January became known as a much cheaper OpenAI alternative, with investor Marc Andreessen calling it “AI’s Sputnik moment”.
OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman said on X: “DeepSeek’s R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price.”
The DeepSeek mobile app was downloaded 1.6 million times by Jan 25 and ranked No. 1 in iPhone app stores in Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, the US and Britain, according to market tracker App Figures.
Who is DeepSeek’s founder?
Born in Guangdong in 1985, Mr Liang received bachelor’s and masters’ degrees in electronic and information engineering from Zhejiang University. He founded DeepSeek in 2023 with 10 million yuan (S$1.9 million) in registered capital, according to company database Tianyancha.
The bottleneck for further advances is not more fund-raising, he told Chinese media outlet 36kr, but US restrictions on access to the best chips.
Most of his top researchers were fresh graduates from top Chinese universities, he said, stressing the need for China to develop its own domestic ecosystem.
“More investment does not necessarily lead to more innovation. Otherwise, large companies would take over all innovation,” Mr Liang said.
Where does DeepSeek stand in China’s AI landscape?
China’s technology leaders, from Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu to Tencent Holdings, have poured significant money and resources into the race to acquire hardware and customers for their AI ventures.
Alongside chief executive Kai-Fu Lee’s 01.AI start-up, DeepSeek stands out with its open-source approach – which is designed to recruit the largest number of users quickly before developing monetisation strategies.
Because DeepSeek’s models are more affordable, it has played a role in helping to drive down costs for AI developers in China, where the bigger players have engaged in a price war that has seen successive waves of price cuts over the past 1½ years.
What are the implications for the global AI marketplace?
DeepSeek’s success may push OpenAI and US providers to lower pricing to maintain their established lead.
It calls into question the vast spending by companies like Meta and Microsoft – each of which has committed to capital expenditure of US$65 billion (S$87.7 billion) or more this year, largely on AI infrastructure – if more efficient models can also compete with a much smaller outlay.
That roiled global stock markets as investors sold off companies like Nvidia and ASML Holding that have benefited from booming demand for AI services.
Shares in Chinese names linked to DeepSeek, such as Iflytek, climbed.
Developers around the world are already experimenting with DeepSeek’s software to build tools with it. That could quicken the adoption of advanced AI reasoning models – while potentially touching off additional concern about the need for guardrails around their use. DeepSeek’s advances may hasten regulation to control how AI is developed.
What are DeepSeek’s shortcomings?
Like all other Chinese AI models, DeepSeek self-censors on topics deemed sensitive in China. It deflects queries about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests or geopolitically fraught questions such as the possibility of China invading Taiwan.
In tests, the DeepSeek bot is capable of giving detailed responses about political figures like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but declines to do so about Chinese President Xi Jinping.
DeepSeek’s cloud infrastructure is likely to be tested by its sudden popularity.
It also briefly experienced a major outage on Jan 27 and will have to manage even more traffic as new and returning users pour more queries into its chatbot.
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