What is DeepSeek, and how is it used? Inside China’s groundbreaking AI service

What is DeepSeek, and how is it used? Inside China’s groundbreaking AI service




OpenAI is Done, China Won (Deepseek Explained)





China’s DeepSeek AI app sends U.S. tech stocks reeling

Leaders in Silicon Valley and Washington said the app shows China can challenge the U.S. in AI. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index lost nearly 2.7 percent in early trading.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/27/deep-seek-ai-markets-nvidia/

The sudden popularity of a Chinese artificial intelligence app called DeepSeek pummeled tech stocks and captivated Silicon Valley on Monday, prompting debate in political and tech industry circles about how the United States can maintain its lead in AI.

The DeepSeek app rocketed to the top of the downloads chart in the Apple store over the weekend and remained there Monday after its release last week by a Chinese start-up of the same name founded in 2023. The app offers similar functionality to OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT chatbot, answering questions and generating text in response to a user’s queries.

Several tech companies that have banked on a surge of AI interest sold off Monday, with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia down almost 17 percent and the tech-focused Nasdaq composite index down 3 percent.

DeepSeek’s explosive debut also escalated concerns about China’s ability to challenge the U.S. lead in advanced artificial intelligence. Both nations have positioned prowess in AI technology as central to their future economic and military power.

The Biden administration introduced several measures intended to restrict Chinese AI development, including sweeping new export controls this month to limit the country’s access to powerful chips known as GPUs, which underpin advanced AI projects. Those latest controls were in part aimed at blocking Chinese efforts to circumvent previous export controls.

Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science and Technology, said Biden’s policies had failed to limit access to American technology and created an opportunity for China and other foreign adversaries to make gains in AI development. David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, said in a post on X that DeepSeek “shows that the AI race will be very competitive.”

The Trump administration has so far shared few specifics about its own approach to AI policy. The president last week rescinded a sweeping executive order on AI signed by Joe Biden in 2023 and signed an executive order of his own directing agencies to rescind all actions taken under the Biden order “that are inconsistent with enhancing America’s leadership in AI.”

DeepSeek was founded by Liang Wenfeng, co-founder of the hedge fund High-Flyer, and says it has developed ways to create the AI models needed to power chatbots and other tools more cheaply. It claims to need fewer and less advanced chips to develop AI software that can compete with technology from U.S. rivals.

Analysts said the Monday sell-off underscores anxieties about whether the massive recent spending by U.S. firms on specialized chips, data centers and related power infrastructure to power AI projects is justified.

Nvidia in particular has exploded in value in recent years because it dominates the market for the GPU chips at the center of the global AI race. It’s now one of three companies with a market capitalization above $3 trillion.

“Markets are sensitive to this situation, as heightened price competition raises doubts about the timing of when profits from multibillion-dollar investments will materialize,” Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, said in an email Monday.

Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo in a statement Monday called DeepSeek an “excellent AI advancement” that shows what can be done with computing power that is “fully export control compliant.” Deploying advanced AI models requires “significant numbers” of Nvidia chips, he said.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella argued on Sunday night that the huge investments in AI infrastructure will still pay off. “As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket, turning it into a commodity we just can’t get enough of,” he wrote in a post on X. Microsoft stock dropped 2.1 percent by market close Monday.

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which has advocated for stronger technological sanctions against Beijing, said over the weekend that it had warned the Commerce Department that “dangerous loopholes” in U.S. chip export controls could lead to “events like this.”

Trump has said that the United States needs to remain competitive with China in developing artificial intelligence. He appeared focused on the technology during his first week in office, hosting tech leaders at the White House to announce a venture called Stargate that will invest $100 billion in private funds into new data centers to power AI projects.

Trump told reporters Saturday that he was considering using emergency powers to provide the “tremendous energy” that U.S. companies need to develop AI models. “We’re already leading,” Trump said on Air Force One. “Very shortly, we’re going to be leading by a lot.”

As Americans rushed to download the app, users also reported instances of censorship in line with China’s tough internet controls. One screen recording posted online appeared to show DeepSeek deleting a response in real-time following a question about Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Asked about Tiananmen Square, site of a deadly government crackdown on protestors in 1989, the app currently responds: “I am sorry, I cannot answer that question. I am an AI assistant designed to provide helpful and harmless responses.”

DeepSeek also releases the AI model underlying its assistant app for free, which some technologists argue allows others to subvert its design more easily than the products of competitors like OpenAI.

Across Silicon Valley, investors and executives debated what DeepSeek’s success meant for the future of AI development.

Longtime technology investor Marc Andreessen, a Trump ally, called DeepSeek’s AI model “one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen” and “a profound gift to the world” in a post on X.

Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger posted that “Wisdom is learning the lessons we thought we already knew,” saying that DeepSeek was a reminder that constraints and limited resources could push a company to find creative solutions.

Leading tech firms have spent billions building out artificial intelligence technology for sale to large businesses. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post last week that his company plans to invest between $60 billion and $65 billion on AI and build a massive data center. OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank recently announced a Trump-supported joint venture, called Stargate, that seeks to spend up to $500 billion building out data centers to support AI projects.

Monday’s sell-off also shaved 1.46 percent off the broader S&P 500 index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which contains fewer tech stocks, gained 0.6 percent. Wall Street’s fear gage, the Cboe Volatility Index, climbed almost 22 percent.

Some analysts suggested that Wall Street’s reaction may be a premature reflection of fear in the markets, noting that U.S. companies have dominated artificial intelligence innovation so far. WedBush senior analyst Dan Ives, who has been bullish on AI, called Monday’s rout a “golden buying opportunity” despite the agitation in U.S. markets.

Much of the business case for artificial intelligence rests on the corporate spending of Western companies, which are unlikely to trust a China-based AI company with their data. And U.S.-based companies are far ahead in terms of developing the necessary hardware infrastructure, Ives said.



China's DeepSeek Showcases Tech Advances Despite US Curbs




China's DeepSeek triggers global tech sell-off




A shocking Chinese AI advancement called DeepSeek is sending US stocks plunging




How China's DeepSeek upends the AI status quo




Why China's DeepSeek shocked Wall Street




Varney: DeepSeek has 'thrown a wrench into American AI leadership'




Is U.S. Tech in Trouble over Deepseek?

Trump calls China’s DeepSeek AI app a ‘wake-up call’ after tech stocks slide

Silicon Valley and Washington leaders said the app shows China can challenge the U.S. The Nasdaq lost 3 percent and chipmaker Nvidia shed $589 billion in market capitalization.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/27/deep-seek-ai-markets-nvidia/


The sudden popularity of a Chinese artificial intelligence app called DeepSeek pummeled tech stocks and captivated Silicon Valley on Monday, prompting debate in political and tech industry circles about how the United States can maintain its lead in AI.

President Donald Trump said late Monday that DeepSeek’s release “should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing to win.”

Trump separately said he planned to place new tariffs on computer chips produced overseas, a policy that could create further challenges for the U.S. tech industry, which depends heavily on chip manufacturing in Asia.

The DeepSeek app rocketed to the top of the downloads chart in the Apple store over the weekend and remained there Monday after its release last week by a Chinese start-up of the same name founded in 2023. The app offers similar functionality to OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT chatbot, answering questions and generating text in response to a user’s queries.

Several tech companies that have banked on a surge of AI interest sold off Monday, with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia down almost 17 percent, losing $589 billion in market capitalization. The tech-focused Nasdaq composite index finished the day down 3 percent.

DeepSeek’s explosive debut also escalated concerns about China’s ability to challenge the U.S. lead in advanced artificial intelligence. Both nations have positioned prowess in AI technology as central to their future economic and military power.

The Biden administration introduced several measures intended to restrict Chinese AI development, including sweeping new export controls this month to limit the country’s access to powerful chips known as GPUs, which underpin advanced AI projects. Those latest controls were in part aimed at blocking Chinese efforts to circumvent previous export controls.

Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science and Technology, said former president Joe Biden’s policies had failed to limit access to American technology and created an opportunity for China and other foreign adversaries to make gains in AI development. David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, said in a post on X that DeepSeek “shows that the AI race will be very competitive.”

The Trump administration has shared few specifics about its own approach to AI policy. The president last week rescinded a sweeping executive order on AI signed by Biden in 2023 and signed an executive order of his own directing agencies to rescind all actions taken under the Biden order “that are inconsistent with enhancing America’s leadership in AI.”

Trump in his remarks late Monday in Doral, Florida, said that the U.S. had the “greatest scientists in the world” and that American companies could benefit from building on DeepSeek’s ideas.

He also criticized the billions of dollars of grants provided to encourage U.S. semiconductor manufacturing under the Biden administration, although the 2022 Chips Act that provided the funding received bipartisan support at the time. Trump said that tariffs he planned to place on imports of foreign-made chips would be more effective, but did not specify details of that policy or when it might take effect.

DeepSeek was founded by Liang Wenfeng, co-founder of the hedge fund High-Flyer, and says it has developed ways to create the AI models needed to power chatbots and other tools more cheaply. It claims to need fewer and less-advanced chips to develop AI software that can compete with technology from U.S. rivals.

Analysts said the Monday sell-off underscores anxieties about whether the massive recent spending by U.S. firms on specialized chips, data centers and related power infrastructure to power AI projects is justified.

Nvidia in particular has exploded in value in recent years because it dominates the market for the GPU chips at the center of the global AI race. It’s now one of three companies with a market capitalization above $3 trillion.

“Markets are sensitive to this situation, as heightened price competition raises doubts about the timing of when profits from multibillion-dollar investments will materialize,” Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, said in an email Monday.

Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo in a statement Monday called DeepSeek an “excellent AI advancement” that shows what can be done with computing power that is “fully export control compliant.” Deploying advanced AI models requires “significant numbers” of Nvidia chips, he said.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella argued Sunday night that the huge investments in AI infrastructure will still pay off. “As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket, turning it into a commodity we just can’t get enough of,” he wrote in a post on X. Microsoft stock dropped 2.1 percent Monday.

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which has advocated stronger technological sanctions against Beijing, said over the weekend that it had warned the Commerce Department that “dangerous loopholes” in U.S. chip export controls could lead to “events like this.”

Trump has said that the United States needs to remain competitive with China in developing artificial intelligence. He appeared focused on the technology during his first week in office, hosting tech leaders at the White House to announce a venture called Stargate that will invest $100 billion in private funds into new data centers to power AI projects.

Trump told reporters Saturday that he was considering using emergency powers to provide the “tremendous energy” that U.S. companies need to develop AI models. “We’re already leading,” Trump said on Air Force One. “Very shortly, we’re going to be leading by a lot.”

As Americans rushed to download the app, users also reported instances of censorship in line with China’s strict internet controls. One screen recording posted online appeared to show DeepSeek deleting a response in real time after a question about Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Asked about Tiananmen Square, site of a deadly government crackdown on protesters in 1989, the app responds: “I am sorry, I cannot answer that question. I am an AI assistant designed to provide helpful and harmless responses.”

DeepSeek also releases the AI model underlying its assistant app free, which some technologists argue allows others to subvert its design more easily than the products of competitors like OpenAI.

Across Silicon Valley, investors and executives debated what DeepSeek’s success meant for the future of AI development.

Longtime technology investor Marc Andreessen, a Trump ally, called DeepSeek’s AI model “one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen” and “a profound gift to the world” in a post on X.

Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger posted that “Wisdom is learning the lessons we thought we already knew,” saying that DeepSeek was a reminder that constraints and limited resources could push a company to find creative solutions.

Leading tech firms have spent billions building out artificial intelligence technology for sale to large businesses. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post last week that his company plans to invest between $60 billion and $65 billion on AI and build a massive data center. OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank are leading the Stargate venture announced with Trump last week that seeks to spend up to $500 billion building out data centers to support AI projects.

Monday’s sell-off also shaved 1.46 percent off the broader S&P 500 index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which contains fewer tech stocks, gained 0.6 percent. Wall Street’s fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index, climbed almost 22 percent.

Some analysts suggested that Wall Street’s reaction may be a premature reflection of fear in the markets, noting that U.S. companies have dominated artificial intelligence innovation so far. WedBush senior analyst Dan Ives, who has been bullish on AI, called Monday’s rout a “golden buying opportunity” despite the reaction in U.S. markets.

DeepSeek R1 - MAJOR NEW OPENSOURCE REASONING MODEL!





Will China’s open-source AI end U.S. supremacy in the field?

With the advent of DeepSeek, the balance of power between the two nations appears to be shifting.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/28/china-deekseek-ai-us-supremacy/




A photo illustration shows the DeepSeek app on a mobile phone in Beijing on Monday. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)


It has become almost a cliché to say that the AI landscape is changing fast. But in recent days, even those on the cutting edge of AI research were taken by surprise — by a Chinese company.

Last week, the AI company DeepSeek released its R1 reasoning model, which is on a par with OpenAI’s o1 (and much better than the ChatGPT models) across a range of logic tasks, including math and coding. The cost of running it is also much lower, only about 2 percent of what OpenAI charges. And on Monday, DeepSeek released Janus Pro, a model small enough to run on your laptop that can generate synthetic images, which it claims outperform OpenAI’s Dall⋅E 3. DeepSeek’s speed of AI innovation is taking the world by storm.

What’s even more remarkable is that DeepSeek’s entire collection of models is open-source — which in this case means they have open weights that anyone can reproduce and build on top of.

It’s a peculiar moment when a Chinese company becomes the de facto open-source leader, while most major American firms, with the exception of Meta, continue to keep their methodologies tightly under wraps. In fact, this is a growing trend for Chinese AI companies — from start-ups such as Minimax to tech giants such as Alibaba — that are giving developers worldwide free access to their AI models.

Until now, closed-source models such as OpenAI’s o3 and Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus were considered the industry standards with the most advanced capabilities — and they were built in the United States. Open-source and Chinese models were thought to be months behind. But DeepSeek’s R1 and Janus Pro show just how quickly the tides of technological supremacy can turn. The introduction of these models has roiled stock markets and caused U.S. tech stocks to plunge. The balance of power now appears to be shifting along two key axes: one between the United States and China, and another between closed- and open-source models.

Defenders of closed-source models are betting that they can preserve their capability gap by protecting their model weights and training methodologies. Open-source advocates, on the other hand, argue that transparency — allowing others to build on their work — can enable these systems to rapidly catch up with larger, closed models. If the open-source thesis is correct, this would turn the AI ecosystem on its head. Open-source models are generally cheaper to use, so when two equally capable models are available — one open, one closed — the open-source model is likely to gain wider adoption, giving it a strategic advantage.

The United States already has the best closed models in the world. To remain competitive, we must also support the development of a vibrant open-source ecosystem.

The race between open- and closed-source AI, as well as between the United States and China, does not yet have a clear winner. But there is clearly mounting pressure on America’s Big Tech players if DeepSeek can compete with them using far fewer resources. Export controls were aimed at choking off China’s access to the most advanced computer chips, impeding its ability to keep pace. But in fact, the relative dearth of high-performing chips in China might have pushed the nation’s companies and researchers to be more efficient and led them to uncover new methodologies that significantly reduce training costs. For example, DeepSeek demonstrated that large model training could be made more efficient by bypassing the traditional supervised fine-tuning stage. They even created R1-Zero, a model that omits this step in AI training, to challenge the research community’s assumptions about fine-tuning’s indispensability.

DeepSeek’s success has also called into question the importance of pretraining, which involves training ever-larger models that predict the next word based on vast amounts of text. This process requires enormous up-front investment in graphics processing units (GPUs) and data — so much data that OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever recently noted we might soon exhaust all the data available on the internet.

But there is another, emerging way to improve models’ performance. Introduced with OpenAI’s o1 model in December, this approach enables models to perform reasoning through self-reflection, similar to how humans reason, using intermediate steps and self-correction to reach a final answer. The training recipe for this approach had previously been closely guarded by OpenAI. DeepSeek blew the lid off that by publishing a paper detailing how it works, allowing others to implement the process.

DeepSeek even demonstrated that you can do this much more cost-effectively by taking a publicly available base model such as Meta’s Llama 3 and teaching it to reason through reinforcement learning — a trial-and-error process with human-devised feedback and rewards. Over time, the models seem to spontaneously learn how to reason, backtrack when they hit dead ends and explore novel approaches. This method eliminates the need to expensively pretrain a new base model, and its implications for AI innovation are profound. Traditionally, even the top-funded university labs have struggled to contribute to AI research due to computing and data limitations. With DeepSeek’s breakthrough, the moat surrounding large, well-funded companies might be shrinking.

It is unlikely that American frontier model companies will change their business models anytime soon, nor is it immediately clear that they should. Open and closed competition will most likely find a natural equilibrium, with a range of different offerings and price points for different users.

But DeepSeek’s release marks a turning point.

The path forward for American innovation involves not just ramping up open-source development but also encouraging the sharing of training methodologies and increasing investment in AI research and development — exemplified by the White House’s recent announcement of the Stargate Project, which aims to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure over the next four years.

America’s competitive edge has long relied on open science and collaboration across industry, academia and government. We should embrace the possibility that open science might once again fuel American dynamism in the age of AI.