The Chinese artificial intelligence company, DeepSeek, presented its latest model, DeepSeek-R1, in January 2025. The launch of this model has attracted attention due to its advanced reasoning capabilities, comparable to leading artificial intelligence systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT, but with a significantly lower development cost. This has shaken the tech industry and caused a notable drop in the stock prices of major companies like Microsoft, Meta, and Nvidia.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt described DeepSeek's announcement as a "turning point" in the global competition for artificial intelligence. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, he highlighted the importance of fostering the development of open-source code to counter DeepSeek's advancements. Schmidt stressed that China's ability to compete with large tech companies using fewer resources underscores the need for the United States to ramp up its efforts in open-source artificial intelligence.
Schmidt also urged an increase in investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure and initiatives like Stargate, as well as urging major research labs to share their training methodologies. DeepSeek, founded in 2023, presents a new challenge in the field of artificial intelligence and global competition in this area.
