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LONDON. − A Chinese-made artificial intelligence (AI) model called DeepSeek has shot to the top of Apple Store’s downloads, stunning investors and sinking some tech stocks.
Its latest version was released on 20 January, quickly impressing AI experts before it got the attention of the entire tech industry − and the world.
US President Donald Trump said it was a “wake-up call” for US companies who must focus on “competing to win”.
What makes DeepSeek so special is the company’s claim that it was built at a fraction of the cost of industry-leading models like OpenAI − because it uses fewer advanced chips.
That possibility caused chip-making giant Nvidia to shed almost US$600bn of its market value on Monday − the biggest one-day loss in US history.
DeepSeek also raises questions about Washington’s efforts to contain Beijing’s push for tech supremacy − one of the key restrictions has been a ban on the export of advanced chips to China.
Beijing, however, has doubled down, with President Xi Jinping declaring AI a top priority.
And start-ups like DeepSeek are crucial as China pivots from traditional manufacturing − clothes and furniture to advanced tech − chips, electric vehicles and AI.
AI can, at times, make a computer seem like a person.
A machine uses the technology to learn and solve problems, typically by being trained on massive amounts of information and recognising patterns.
The end result is software that can have conversations like a person or predict people’s shopping habits.
In recent years, it has become best known as the tech behind chatbots such as ChatGPT − and DeepSeek − also known as generative AI.
These programs again learn from huge swathes of data, including online text and images, to be able to make new content.
But these tools can create falsehoods and often repeat the biases contained within their training data.
Millions of people use tools such as ChatGPT to help them with everyday tasks like writing emails, summarising text, and answering questions − and others even use them to help with basic coding and studying.
DeepSeek is the name of a free AI-powered chatbot, which looks, feels and works very much like ChatGPT.
That means it’s used for many of the same tasks, though exactly how well it works compared to its rivals is up for debate.
It is reportedly as powerful as OpenAI’s o1 model − released at the end of last year − in tasks including mathematics and coding.
These models produce responses incrementally, simulating a process similar to how humans reason through problems or ideas. It uses less memory than its rivals, ultimately reducing the cost to perform tasks.
Like many other Chinese AI models − Baidu’s Ernie or Doubao by ByteDance − DeepSeek is trained to avoid politically sensitive questions.
Deepseek says it has been able to do this cheaply − researchers behind it claim it cost US$6m to train, a fraction of the “over US$100m” alluded to by OpenAI boss Sam Altman when discussing GPT-4.
DeepSeek was founded in December 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, and released its first AI large language model the following year.
Not much is known about Liang, who graduated from Zhejiang University with degrees in electronic information engineering and computer science. But he now finds himself in the international spotlight. − BBC
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter