Explainer: Chinese DeepSeek a wake-up call for US AI?

What is DeepSeek?

Hangzhou-based DeepSeek, an artificial intelligence research lab, was founded in China in the late 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, a serial entrepreneur who also runs the hedge fund High-Flyer. The model was developed using less advanced, and fewer, computer chips than those employed by tech giants in the United States. According to reports, the model’s development team had spent less than $6 million on computing power to train the model, which is just a fraction of the multibillion-dollar AI budgets enjoyed by US tech giants.