Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek Challenges Industry Norms With Ultra-Efficient Models

DeepSeek's cost-efficient AI models and viral chatbot app are reshaping the global AI landscape, raising questions about the future of innovation and competition in the sector.

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, has gained global attention after its chatbot app topped app store charts and rivaled OpenAI's ChatGPT in popularity.
The company's V-series models, including the latest V3, are notable for being trained at significantly lower costs—under $6 million—using innovative engineering techniques.
DeepSeek's reasoning model, R1, matches OpenAI's o1 on benchmarks and self-fact-checks, but like other Chinese-developed AIs, it is subject to government-mandated content restrictions.
The open release of DeepSeek's model weights under a permissive license has spurred widespread adoption, with developers creating over 500 derivative models on platforms like Hugging Face.
DeepSeek's rise has disrupted the AI industry, challenging assumptions about the high costs of cutting-edge AI development and impacting tech giants like Nvidia and OpenAI.

South China Morning Post