DeepSeek’s arrival at the top of the Apple App Store charts has placed it firmly in the public consciousness, shaking the belief that the US would continue as the largely unchallenged global superpower of AI.
This dominance has been mainly down to enormous capital investment – but China’s DeepSeek was developed for a fraction of the price of its US rivals. Its sudden debut has had a huge impact, wiping $1tn off the value of US tech stocks.
The efficiency and capability of DeepSeek’s model should not be underestimated.
All of this has been achieved using lower-end technology, a consequence of US restrictions on the export to China of high-tech components – Nvidia’s H100 chip at the higher end and its H800 chip at the lower end, both of which are commonly used in AI.
The US barred its export over fears that China could challenge American AI dominance if given unfettered access to Silicon Valley technology, so a viable AI model created in…
