DeepSeek: How an unheard Chinese ChatGPT rival took the AI world by storm, even impressed Sam Altman

Ever since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, OpenAI redefined the conversation around Artificial Intelligence (AI). ChatGPT became synonymous with AI and eclipsed those who came before it and even after it by a distance when it came to what the chatbot was able to do.

Given its market dominance and massive war chest to fund its pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI), nobody expected the competition to catch up with OpenAI anytime soon.

REUTERS

But DeepSeek, a hitherto unheard-of Chinese AI startup, just flipped the script and made the world take note last week with the release of DeepSeek-R1, an open-source alternative to ChatGPT.

What is DeepSeek

DeepSeek is based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, and is owned by the Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer. What makes DeepSeek's achievements even more impressive is the fact that the company was established only in 2023.

CREDIT: AP

Unlike other AI startups, DeepSeek did not have access to the latest chips from Nvidia due to US sanctions.

DeepSeek puts AI giants on notice

This also resulted in DeepSeek developing its LLM for $6 million, whereas the likes of OpenAI had spent anywhere between $100 million to $1 billion for the same.

DeepSeek-R1 launched last week and claims to be 20 to 50 times more affordable to use than OpenAI's o1 model, depending on the task.

DeepSeek-R1 also surpassed ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app on the iOS App Store in the United States.

Also read:?DeepSeek hurts tech titans as Chinese ChatGPT wipes out $108 billion; Nvidia boss, Oracle CEO among biggest losers

CREDIT: REUTERS

Impressive, says Altman

As DeepSeek continues to make waves, it is getting noticed and even appreciated by some of its biggest competitors.

"DeepSeek's r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price. But mostly we are excited to continue to execute on our research roadmap and believe more compute is more important now than ever before to succeed at our mission," OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman said.

Notably, Altman had earlier played down DeepSeek as a copy of ChatGPT.

CREDIT: BCCL

Perplexity AI Co-Founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas also congratulated the Chinese firm for becoming the first AI app to beat ChatGPT.

What is next for AI

While DeepSeek has impressed many tech titans, it has also raised some alarm bells, especially in the US, which had so far prevented China from making significant advances when it comes to AI.

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