DeepSeek shook the markets. Is this the end of American dominance in AI?

 

"Nasdaq 100 futures fell sharply on Monday morning. An artificial intelligence model developed by Chinese company DeepSeek has threatened American dominance in the field of AI.

 

Chinese company DeepSeek released its V3 artificial intelligence model in December, and on January 20, it premiered an improved model called R1.

 

Nasdaq 100 futures fell by as much as 2.5 percent on Monday morning, while the S&P 500 fell by nearly 1 percent. It looked like Monday's session on Wall Street would start with a sell-off of American technology companies. The clear deterioration in sentiment on the stock market was explained by the debut of an artificial intelligence model developed by Chinese company DeepSeek.

 

Within days of its launch, the Chinese competitor ChatGPT jumped into the ranks of the most downloaded applications. Experts say DeepSeek can do more while using fewer resources, making it cheaper than the most popular AI tools.

 

What has DeepSeek done?

 

Chinese company DeepSeek released its V3 AI model in December, and on January 20, it premiered an improved model called R1. It quickly became one of the top ten best-rated AI models. "DeepSeek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I've ever seen," tweeted Marc Andreessen, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who advises President Trump.

 

Experts point out that although DeepSeek's technology is less advanced than the AI ​​models developed by OpenAI or Alphabet (Google), it is still very advanced, considering that it was created using less advanced chips, fewer of them than American AI models, and some steps that Western researchers considered necessary to create AI models were omitted.

 

"DeepSeek declares that it has allocated approximately $6 million to train the new AI model, which took it several months, which is only a fraction of the amount and time that its US competitors had to spend to train the current AI models of major technology conglomerates. This information has caused some investors to question the validity of the previous, huge investment outlays on the development of AI technology, which at the same time and despite previous beliefs about the stagnation of Chinese competition in this area, was developed much cheaper and, it seems, similarly effectively," wrote XTB analysts.

 

Chamath Palihapitiya, a technology investor who used to sit on the board of Facebook, warned that the success of the DeepSeek model could undermine the sense of large investments in artificial intelligence made by American companies.

 

The success of DeepSeek, which has reached the level of the best AI models (from OpenAI or Google) with "insignificant" demand for graphics processors, shows that the restriction of chip exports planned by the US does not have to be a problem for Poland.

 

DeepSeek is being developed by Liang Wenfeng, a Chinese hedge fund tycoon known for his investments in artificial intelligence. On January 20, he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and discussed how companies from the PRC can close the gap with the US in artificial intelligence research.

 

DeepSeek has already overtaken ChatGPT in terms of downloads in the Apple online store."