OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman has reacted to the growing popularity of Chinese startup DeepSeek in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) space globally, saying the ChatGPT maker welcomes a new competitor.
Altman in a post on his X handle on Tuesday, said he was also impressed by how DeepSeek was able to deliver its service at a cheaper price.
While the meteoric rise of the Chinese AI has become a threat to the growth of ChatGPT and other American AGI’s, Altman said OpenAI has been challenged to do better and will come up with new releases in the coming days or months.
What Altman is saying
In what appears to be his first public comment after DeepSeek caused a stir in the global tech space, Altman said:
“Deepseek’s R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price.
“We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! We will pull up some releases.
“But mostly we are excited to continue to execute our research roadmap and believe more computing is more important now than ever before to succeed at our mission
“The world is going to want to use a LOT of AI, and really be quite amazed by the next gen models coming.”
The DeepSeek phenomenon
On Monday, DeepSeek rattled global tech markets, triggering a selloff in shares of major companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Meta.
- The app recently surpassed rivals such as ChatGPT to become the top-rated free app on Apple’s App Store, shaking confidence in U.S. dominance in AI innovation.
- Analysts believe the app’s low-cost development model has challenged existing assumptions about the financial barriers to creating cutting-edge AI systems.
- DeepSeek’s disruptive potential has also raised concerns about the future profitability of U.S. tech giants that have poured billions into AI infrastructure.
- DeepSeek is powered by the open-source DeepSeek-V3 model, which its researchers claim was developed for under $6 million, a fraction of the costs incurred by its competitors.
- The company’s R1, a recently launched version of the app, has been touted as having performance on par with OpenAI’s advanced models in tasks like math, coding, and natural language processing.
What you should know
The rise of DeepSeek comes at a time when Microsoft is pushing the American AI leadership agenda to reduce China’s dominance in the global AI space.
In a January 3 blog post where he announced Microsoft’s plans to invest $80 billion in AI-enabled data centers this year, the company’s Vice Chairman and President, Brad Smith, highlighted the growing competition between U.S. and Chinese AI technologies, particularly in developing nations.
- According to him, the advent of generative AI has intensified competition, particularly with China’s rapidly advancing AI sector.
- He compared this race to the evolution of the telecommunications industry over the last two decades.
- Smith noted that Chinese companies, with substantial government subsidies, overtook Western counterparts in telecommunications, creating dependencies that posed challenges to U.S. national security.
- He said China is now replicating this strategy in AI by subsidizing access to critical technologies like chips and promising to build local AI data centers in developing nations. The strategy aims to lock these nations into China’s AI ecosystem for the long term.
