China’s Cost-effective Deepseek AI Disrupts Global Tech, Shakes Up Big Players

ANKARA, Jan 29 (Bernama-AA) -- China's DeepSeek artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot has rapidly gained global traction, rivaling OpenAI’s ChatGPT despite operating with significantly fewer resources, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported.

The AI model surged in popularity across mobile app stores, dethroning ChatGPT in several regions, including the United States, highlighting its cost-effectiveness and efficiency.

DeepSeek’s rise has sparked discussions in the tech industry as it operates on a fraction of the resources used by its competitors.

Unlike other AI giants that rely on over 16,000 advanced chips, DeepSeek was developed using just 2,000 older-generation chips, constrained by US-imposed chip export restrictions on China.

Despite this limitation, the model was trained with a budget of under US$6 million - far below the reported US$100 million spent on OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT model.

The performance of DeepSeek against industry leaders such as Google and OpenAI has unsettled Big Tech stocks, particularly in the semiconductor sector.

On Monday, American chip giant Nvidia suffered a sharp drop in its stock price, falling as low as US$117.26, marking its steepest single-day decline since March 2020.

Nvidia’s market capitalisation also plummeted by over US$500 billion -- the largest one-day market loss in US stock market history.

The unexpected success of DeepSeek has reignited debates over the cost-efficiency of large language models (LLMs) and their impact on the dominance of Western tech firms in AI innovation.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to invest between US$60 billion and US$65 billion in AI infrastructure this year, while former US President Donald Trump described DeepSeek as “a wake-up call” for Silicon Valley, urging American firms to sharpen their competitive edge.

Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged DeepSeek’s achievements, stating on X that it is “an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price.”

He added, “We will obviously deliver much better models, and also, it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor.”

-- BERNAMA-AA