DeepSeek has attracted attention in global Ai circles after writing in a paper in December 2024 that is training of DeepSeek-V3 required less than $6 million worth of computing power from Nvidia H800 chips.
Chinese startup DeepSeek launch of its latest Ai models, which it says are on a par or better than industry- leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost, is threating to upset the technology world order.
DeepSeek has attracted attention in global Ai circles after writing in a paper in December 2024 that is training of DeepSeek-V3 required less than $6 million worth of computing power from Nvidia H800 chips. DeepSeek’s Ai Assistant, powered by DeepSeek – V3, has overtaken rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple’s App store in United States.
This has raised doubts about the reasoning behind some U.S tech companies’ decisions to pledge billions of dollars in Ai investment and shares of several big tech players, including Nvidia, have been hit.
Why is DeepSeek causing a stir?
The release of OpenAI’ ChatGPT in late 2022 caused a scramble among Chinese tech firms, who rushed to create their own chatbots powered by artificial intelligence.
But after the release of the first Chinese ChatGPT equivalent, made by search engine giant Baidu, there was widespread disappointment in China at the gap in AI capabilities between U.S and Chinese firms.
The quality and the cost efficiency of DeepSeek’s models have flipped this narrative on its head. The two Models that have been showered with praise by Silicon Valley executive and U.S tech company engineers alike, DeepSeek – V3 and DeepSeek- R1, are on par with OpenAI and Meta’s most advanced models, the Chinese startup has said.
They are also cheaper to use. The DeepSeek – R1, released last week, is 20 to 50 times cheaper to use then OpenAI o1 model, depending on the task, according to a post on DeepSeek’s official WeChat account.
But some have publicly expressed skepticism about DeepSeek’s success story. Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang said during an interview with CNBC on January 23, 2025, without providing evidence, that DeepSeek has 50,000 Nvidia H100 chips, which he claimed would not be disclosed because that ban such advanced AI chips from being sold to Chinese companies. DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegation.
Who is the behind DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is a Hangzhou – based startup whose controlling shareholder is Liang Wenfeng, co- founder of quantitative hedge fund High – Flyer, based on Chinese corporate records.
Mr. Liang’s fund announced on March 2023 on it was “starting again”, going beyond treading to concentrate resources on creating a new and essence of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).DeepSeek was created later that year.
ChatGPT makers OpenAI define AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks.it is unclear how much Highflyer has an office located in the same building as DeepSeek, and it also owns patents related to chip clusters used to train AI models, according to Chinese corporate records.
High – Flyer’s AI unit said on its official We Chat account in July 2022 that it owns and operates a cluster of 10,000 A100 chips.
How does Beijing view DeepSeek?
DeepSeek success has already been noticed in China’s top political circles’ January 20, 2025, the day DeepSeek – R1 was released to the public, Mr. Liang attended a closed-door symposium for businessman and experts hosted by Chinese premier Li Qiang. According to state news agency Xinhua.
Mr. Liang’s presence at the gathering is potentially a sign that DeepSeek’s success could be important to Beijing’s export controls and achieving self – sufficiency in strategic industries like AI.
A similar symposium in 2024 was attended by Baidu CEO Robin Li.
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