The latest artificial intelligence (AI) models launched by Chinese startup DeepSeek have spurred turmoil in the technology sector following its emergence as a potential rival to leading U.S.-based firms.
DeepSeek wrote in a paper last month that it trained its DeepSeek-V3 model with less than $6 million worth of computing power from what it says are 2,000 Nvidia H800 chips to achieve a level of performance on par with the most advanced models from OpenAI and Meta.
Those chips are less advanced than the most cutting edge chips on the market, which are subject to export controls, though DeepSeek claims it overcomes that disadvantage with innovative AI training techniques. DeepSeek’s AI assistant, which is powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model, surpassed OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the top-rated free application in the Apple App Store in the U.S.
The China-based firm’s emergence has raised questions about leading U.S. tech companies investing billions of dollars in advanced chips and large data …