DeepSeek’s launch of a man-made intelligence mannequin that could replicate the efficiency of OpenAI’s o1 at a fraction of the price has surprised traders and analysts. Markets reeled as Nvidia, a microchip and AI agency, shed greater than $500bn in market worth in a file one-day loss for any firm on Wall Road. Buyers feared that DeepSeek challenged the dominance of US AI leaders.
Donald Trump described DeepSeek as a “wake-up name”. In China, DeepSeek’s founder, Liang Wenfeng, has been hailed as a nationwide hero and was invited to attend a symposium chaired by China’s premier, Li Qiang. The tempo at which China has been in a position to meet up with frontier AI analysis within the US is accelerating.
However DeepSeek shouldn’t be the one Chinese firm to have innovated regardless of the embargo on superior US expertise. Matt Sheehan, a fellow on the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace and an professional on Chinese AI, stated: “If the US authorities thinks all we have to do is crush DeepSeek after which we’ll be OK, then we’re in for a impolite shock.”
In current weeks, different Chinese expertise companies have rushed to publish their newest AI fashions, which they declare are on a par with these developed by DeepSeek and OpenAI.
However what are the Chinese AI companies that could match DeepSeek’s impact?
Alibaba Cloud
On 29 January, the primary day of the lunar new yr vacation, main Chinese expertise firm Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Alibaba, launched an up to date model of its Qwen 2.5 AI mannequin, known as Qwen 2.5-Max.
In keeping with Alibaba Cloud, Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms DeepSeek V3 and Meta’s Llama 3.1 throughout 11 benchmarks. The firm stated that it was “filled with confidence within the subsequent model of Qwen 2.5-Max”.
Some analysts stated that the actual fact that Alibaba Cloud selected to launch Qwen 2.5-Max simply as companies in China closed for the vacations mirrored the stress that DeepSeek has positioned on the home market. However Sheehan stated it might even have been an try and experience on the wave of publicity for Chinese fashions generated by DeepSeek’s shock.
Zhipu
Zhipu is a Beijing-based start-up that is backed by Alibaba. Generally known as considered one of China’s “AI tigers”, it was within the headlines just lately not for its AI achievements however for the actual fact that it was blacklisted by the US authorities. On 15 January, Zhipu was considered one of greater than two dozen Chinese entities added to a US restricted commerce checklist. Zhipu particularly was added for allegedly aiding China’s navy development with its AI growth. Zhipu condemned the choice and stated it lacked a factual foundation.
Allegations about navy uplift apart, it’s clear that Zhipu’s progress within the AI area is fast. Its most up-to-date product is AutoGLM, an AI assistant app launched in October, which helps customers to function their smartphones with advanced voice instructions.
Moonshot AI
On the identical day that DeepSeek launched its R1 mannequin, 20 January, one other Chinese start-up launched an LLM that it claimed could additionally problem OpenAI’s o1 on arithmetic and reasoning.
Moonshot AI is one other Alibaba-backed AI start-up, primarily based in Beijing and valued at $3.3bn. In contrast to Alibaba, a behemoth that was based in 1999, Moonshot AI is a relative newcomer. Like DeepSeek, it was based in 2023.
Its providing, Kimi k1.5, is the upgraded model of Kimi, which was launched in October 2023. It attracted consideration for being the primary AI assistant that could course of 200,000 Chinese characters in a single immediate. Moonshot AI later stated Kimi’s functionality had been upgraded to have the ability to deal with 2m Chinese characters.
Moonshot AI “is within the prime echelons of Chinese start-ups”, Sheehan stated. “It wouldn’t shock me in any respect if Moonshot or Zhipu has a mannequin that equals or comes near DeepSeek in efficiency inside the subsequent weeks or months.”
ByteDance
One other lunar new yr launch got here from ByteDance, TikTok’s dad or mum firm. On 29 January it unveiled Doubao-1.5-pro, an improve to its flagship AI mannequin, which it stated could outperform OpenAI’s o1 in sure assessments.
In addition to efficiency, Chinese companies are difficult their US rivals on value. Doubao’s strongest model is priced at 9 yuan per million tokens, which is sort of half the worth of DeepSeek’s providing for DeepSeek-R1. For comparability, OpenAI’s o1 prices the equal of 438 yuan for a similar utilization.
Tencent
Primarily recognized for gaming and WeChat, the ever present messaging app, Tencent has additionally made strides in AI. Its flagship mannequin is a text-to-video generator known as Hunyuan, which Tencent stated can carry out in addition to Meta’s Llama 3.1. Some estimates counsel that Hunyuan required round a tenth of the computing energy utilized by Meta to coach Llama.