China Floods the World With AI Models After DeepSeek Success
- China firms release 10 major releases or updates in two weeks
- Low-cost, open source models may undercut Valley firm profits
The rapidly accelerating array of enhancements and tune-ups is more than Chinese companies jumping on the DeepSeek bandwagon.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/BloombergDeepSeek did more than just show the AI industry you don’t have to spend billions to build artificial intelligence. It fired up a long-dormant Chinese tech industry — and now Western names from OpenAI Inc. to Nvidia Corp. may pay the price.
Since DeepSeek upstaged OpenAI in January with a powerful model that purportedly cost just several million dollars to build, China’s tech leaders have flooded the market with a rapid succession of low-cost AI services, undercutting premium offerings from the likes of OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Chinese companies have in the past two weeks rolled out no fewer than 10 major product updates or releases — and that’s just the big names.