CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet Sundar Pichai acknowledged the global nature of artificial intelligence, citing Chinese startup DeepSeek as an example of strong AI development outside the U.S.
Speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, Pichai said Alphabet remains a leading player in AI but recognized that other companies, including DeepSeek, are making significant progress.
DeepSeek, a free AI-powered chatbot, operates similarly to ChatGPT and is reportedly comparable to OpenAI’s o1 model in tasks such as mathematics and coding. Unlike its competitors, DeepSeek has optimized costs, claiming it was trained for $6 million, far below the over $100 million cost hinted at by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for GPT-4.
The startup has also managed to work around U.S. chip export restrictions by utilizing a mix of Nvidia A100 chips and less advanced processors, leading to higher efficiency and reduced operational costs. This combination has made DeepSeek’s AI assistant the most downloaded free app on Apple’s App Store upon its U.S. release.
However, the company faced large-scale malicious attacks, forcing it to temporarily limit registrations and deal with website outages.
Like other Chinese AI models, including Baidu’s Ernie and ByteDance’s Doubao, DeepSeek is trained to avoid politically sensitive topics. Its rise underscores the growing competition in the AI sector, with Chinese firms making strides despite regulatory and technological challenges.
