When Xingui Chinese company Deepseek revealed its latest AI model in January, Silicon Valley was impressed. The chips used by engineers are less than most industries. Wall Street panicked and technical stocks declined. Washington is worried that it will lose its foundation in an important strategic department. Beijing and its supporters agreed: "Deepseek shocked the invincible myth of high -tech in the United States," a nationalist commentator Hu Xijin was crowded with people in Chinese social media.
However, Openai, which runs ChatGPT, revealed that it is investigating DeepSeek because it is said that ChatGPT has been trained to train chatbots. After all, China Silicon Valley-Salial may have got rid of Silicon Valley.
Which deepseek is the real deepseek? Is the magnificent innovative still an immoral liar? The answers are.
Chinese companies have proven to be skilled inventors and can compete with the best inventors in the world, including Apple and Tesla. They also proved that they are good at copying and stealing their technologies, and then contrary to their competitors that create it. When you don't have to start developing products from scratch, it is much easier to produce products at a cheap price.
"The ancient narrative is that China cannot be innovated and can only be copied," Gregory Allen, director of the Wadhwani AI Center of Strategy and International Research Center, told me. "Now, China can both innovate and copy and benefit from the two."
DeepSeek's model has real creative elements, and some of the Silicon Valley engineers will definitely study these elements. This Chinese company has forced new efficiency to reduce the cost of available technology-China has done it in other fields. Jimmy Goodrich, a senior adviser to Rand Corporation, specializes in Chinese technology. He told me that in the same country to reduce manufacturing costs and improve factory operations (in other words, in this case) I have figured out, "How to deal with a lot of things at a faster number of computers at a faster speed."
But then, DeepSeek may take a step further to engage in the process called "distillation". In essence, it is said that the company has bombed ChatGPT with problems, tracks answers, and uses these results to train its own model. When asked, "What kind of model are you?" DeepSeek's recent chat robot first answered "ChatGPT" (but it does not seem to share a highly suspicious response). DeepSeek was accused of doing the same as hackers, but this still violates Openai's service terms. Moreover, if DeepSeek does do this, it will help the company create competitive AI models at a much lower cost than OPENAI. Deepseek did not respond to the comments request.
The meaning of DeepSeek's things may be rippling throughout the industry. If competitors (Chinese or other) can simply invest in the AI model, what is the significance of investing tens of millions of times in the AI model?
However, the story of Deepseek also revealed that the number of Chinese technology development continues to depend on the United States. DeepSeek uses the US giant NVIDIA's chips to create its model. It turns out that American data may also be used to train it. Washington can use this advantage to kill Chinese technology companies.
The fruit of denying China's most advanced American research has always been the core of the American competitive strategy. For example, since the end of 2022, the Biden government has effectively banned American companies from selling the most advanced chips to Chinese companies. Deepseek bought a chip before the control started. (U.S. officials also investigated whether the company may purchase prohibited chips through third parties in Singapore.) In a interview last year, Liang Wenfeng, the founder of Deepseek, acknowledged The problem has never been money, but the embargo on high -end chips. "The company restricted new users last week because it said that it was a threat of hacking, but the system may not be able to deal with a large number of curiosity customers' ability.
The Chinese government and chip industry are competing to replace the prohibited US semiconductor with local alternatives, but this technology is complicated and they are trying to catch up. This is why Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally applied relief to President Joe Biden. Now, Deepseek's success may make Washington a more tightening limit. Members of Congress have called for expansion of the bargaining ban to cover wider technology.
However, although DeepSeek's story reveals the dependence of Chinese technology to the progress of the United States, it also shows that transnational traffic that stops technology products and professional knowledge may not only need export restrictions. DeepSeek's engineer found a way to overcome Washington to obstruct their efforts and show that they can do more things in less ways to make up for the scarcity of creativity and make up for any necessary ways.
Weifeng Zhong, a senior adviser to the First Institute of Policy in the United States, told me, "You must run faster, because preventing it may not always prevent China from catching up." This may mean to ensure that the semiconductor supply chain And to attract foreign experts through targeted immigration plans. Since the scientific and technological war is a talent contest, Washington may even consider giving green cards to Chinese engineers who graduate from American universities in order to work in Silicon Valley, rather than Deepseek.
President Donald Trump may move in different directions. He fiercely criticized the "Chip Law" passed in 2022, which provided financial support for strengthening the US semiconductor industry in the United States, but prefers the tax rate of Taiwan's chips. He threatened to close the Ministry of Education. Tesla's founders Elon Musk and Maga loyalists' latest quarrels on foreign expert visas show that the factors of Republican Alliance are too opposed to immigrants and cannot attract the talents needed by Silicon Valley. Essence In this regard, Trump planned a visa plan on the grounds of Musk.
Deepseek chooses to do anything with its talents and technology anyway. Chinese entrepreneurs and engineers are preparing to compete in any way and all ways, including invention, evasion and simulation. Maybe Deepseek is the great Chinese technology animal that it is touted. Maybe it will be the next large Chinese technology company, or the next.