.png){kind=logo}
In the quickly evolving field of artificial intelligence, a new contender in China has caught global attention by the name of DeepSeek AI. Founded in Hangzhou and with a limited budget, DeepSeek has become a serious competitor to OpenAI.
DeepSeek was created under a branch of the Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer, under the leadership and co-founder Liang Wenfeng. Wenfeng initially wanted to use AI abilities for financial trading, but the company expanded it horizons as they went on to develop their flagship model DeepSeek-R1. This new model was released in January 2025 and quickly gained popularity for its advanced features.
Many people now ask, what sets DeepSeek’s model apart from the rest? Well, their greatest achievement was to create a high-preforming AI model for a fraction of the cost normally required. For DeepSeek’s R1 model they spent approximately $6 million while competitors OpenAI created their GPT-4 model for $100 million. This cost efficiency was made possible by DeepSeek’s unique training techniques and strategies allowing them to continue developing with fewer resources.
Following the release of DeepSeek-R1, it has made a great impact on the global market, particularly the tech industry. DeepSeek-R1 topped the US App Store free app downloads on January 27th, 2025, which displayes the rapid rise in popularity in DeepSeek. This caused a huge market reaction with several companies like Nvidia experiencing a large drop in their stock with investors anticipating greater competition in the market.
Despite recent achievements, DeepSeek has faced a level of scrutiny regarding censorship and data privacy. US experts have raised concerns over DeepSeek sending user data like fingerprints and search history over to Chinese servers. Moreover, it has been proven that DeepSeek’s AI model has specific censorship policies following its affiliation with the Chinese government.
Although this new AI tool may have its downsides, DeepSeek’s emergence signals a major shift in the AI industry demonstrating that advanced AI model can be created with limited funds. This dramatic rise from a small startup to global competitor in the tech industry shows the technological advancement achieved in recent years prompting both excitement and concern around the world as we continue to explore this new frontier of AI.
