How China's new AI model DeepSeek is threatening U.S. dominance

CNBC ^ | January 24, 2025 | By Jasmine Wu,CNBC and Deirdre Bosa,CNBC

[dennisw]

A little-known artificial intelligence lab out of China has ignited panic throughout Silicon Valley after releasing AI models that can outperform America's best despite being built more cheaply and with less-powerful chips.

DeepSeek, as the lab is called, unveiled a free, open-source large language model in late December that it says took only two months and less than $6 million to build, using reduced-capability chips from Nvidia called H800s.

The new developments have raised alarms on whether America's global lead in artificial intelligence is shrinking and called into question Big Tech's massive spend on building AI models and data centers.

In a set of third-party benchmark tests, DeepSeek's model outperformed Meta's Llama 3.1, OpenAI's GPT-4o and Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 3.5 in accuracy ranging from complex problem-solving to math and coding.

DeepSeek on Monday released R1, a reasoning model that also outperformed OpenAI's latest o1 in many of those third-party tests.

"To see the DeepSeek new model, it's super impressive in terms of both how they have really effectively done an open-source model that does this inference-time compute, and is super-compute efficient," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday. "We should take the developments out of China very, very seriously."

DeepSeek also had to navigate the strict semiconductor restrictions that the U.S. government has imposed on China, cutting the country off from access to the most powerful chips, like Nvidia's H100s. The latest advancements suggest that DeepSeek either found a way to work around the rules, or that the export controls were not the chokehold Washington intended.

[CaptainK]

Surprised that so many would believe anything out of the mouth of the CCP.

[frog in a pot]

All companies in China are ultimately owned and operated by their government. It is certain we are up against well-thought-out long-range planning.

The sad irony is they are using and, it appears, improving in real-time our open marketplace and technological advances to beat us at our own game.

Competition is good of course, but not when used to achieve domination.

[adorno]

President Donald Trump is willing to tariff Canada and Mexico 25 percent but for China he only wants a 10 percent tariff.

Canada and Mexico are virtually on our soil, so their competition with our products is more immediate. Whereas China's products have the much higher expense of shipping for thousands of miles, and that's not cheap.

[adorno]

Our colleges have become nothing but diploma mills for money, but the Chinese demand performance.

Did those well-educated Chinese engineers develop the AI which most of the world is admiring right now? Did the Chinese develop the computer chips which power the world's computers? Did the Chinese develop the stealth fighter/bomber planes?

Most of what the Chinese do 'wonders' with, is something that first came from the U.S. or Europe or Japan or S.Korea.

[frog in a pot]

We have a lot of families from India living in our neighborhoods. One thing I did notice is their kids are always outside playing.

We have a lot of the same people who have become numerically prominent throughout the medical profession in our neighborhood. One thing I have noticed is that some of their older females are pushing shopping carts with infants and elementary-aged children in tow and handing notes out to other shoppers.

My first impression was that it was a request from a non-English-speaking shopper for assistance, only to find out it was a request for money.

WTH would expose a 6-12 year old boy to such an activity? Have we opened our borders to their caste system?

[PMAS]

Notice how this Depp Seek story came out last Friday, just days after Trump announces the Stargate project.

I believe nothing that comes out of the CCP, they probably spent vastly more money on this AI and its most definitely a Trojan Horse.

Trust nothing out of China

[adorno]

The fault behind our woes rests solely and entirely upon our own shoulders. Recognize that and reverse it, or make excuses and shift the blame, then continue the decline.

How do you explain that we are still the envy of the world? People envy our technology and out businesses and our way of life and our freedoms. The whole world wants to come and live in the U.S., even the Chinese who you praise so much.Would you prefer to live in China or stay in the U.S., knowing what you know right now.

[NeverTyranny]

I have to respectfully disagree with some of your observations. I worked with the Chinese at a Chinese tech company with a large footprint in the US. The Chinese live under communist rule. They are surveilled and under duress to perform. While that might bring “excellence” it also stifles individual achievements and ambition. In addition, I was a science judge at state-wide science fairs. The brilliance of the American students amazed me. It made me very proud of these young minds but also made me a tad sad. Why? Because you do not hear about these young people, their innovations, their ideas instead the media bombards us with the fringe of society. Believe me, innovation is alive and well in our country as is ambition. Something that is missing in the Chinese equation.

[ChessExpert]

I assume we mean communist China and not Taiwan.

[adorno]

'My son graduated with honors with electrical and computer engineering degrees in 2023. He can not get an interview, let alone a job.'

That son is overqualified. Not in the education, which might be enough as far as academic qualifications are concerned.

I remember a few years ago an article which claimed that, someone with a computer engineering degree could expect a staring salary of about $200,000 per year. Expecting that, of somewhere close to that, makes a new graduate 'overqualified'. Compare a new American graduate from engineering school with what someone from India is willing to accept as a salary, and that son of yours will lose every time. Even an experienced Indian engineer will accept a much lower salary than what an American engineer seeks.

Elon Musk is right, America needs more H1Bs who are willing to work for less. American college/university graduates arenot as 'good' (for the bottom line) of a corporation.

[adorno]

We have a lot of families from India living in our neighborhoods. One thing I did notice is their kids are always outside playing.

Not all Indian parents or Chinese parents, are strict with heir kids when it comes to studying. I'm noticed here in Tampa some Indian kids playing like all regular kids, but, they keep to their 'own kind'. (If you know what I mean).

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

The sooner tge floor drops from the market, the better for all of us without power.

[Ex gun maker.]

A pox on all their houses!
“AI” is NOT going to be good for us.
I can think of no actual benefit from it.
But hey, if the lazy can now be even lazier I guess we now celebrate that!

[Elsie]

INDEED!

[Elsie]

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thelastamericanvagabond.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F04%2Ftruth-vs-comfort-meme.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=0e2b91250d17154c121c5b08dba69c5a0cb4a9cad23a26535b774697d9f1c811&ipo=images

[Elsie]

A few questions:

What IS the ‘cloud’?
Who OWNS the ‘cloud’??
Where IS the ‘cloud’ located???

[Elsie]

outside?

Don’t they know how DANGEROUS that is?

[Elsie]

Almost every piece of hardware that is part of the IoT wants you to 'signup' for something, wanting to know a bunch of your information - things that I don't want to tell it.

[Elsie]

...and your hardware is NOT gonna work unless you do!

[lgjhn23]

“...I can absolutely say that they are extremely well educated and well beyond the majority of Americans. Our colleges have become nothing but diploma mills for money, but the Chinese demand performance....”

It was only a matter of time before ^THIS^ caught up with us.
The long -term effots of our domestic RAT communists appear to have been in cohoots with the Chinese ones by denigrating our eucational systems and colleges to the point of total uselessness. .