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Why DeepSeek’s new model has been met with a shrug
The AI lab faces stiffening competition and a meddling state.
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The release of DeepSeek's latest model comes at a time when China’s AI scene is increasingly crowded, says the writer.
PHOTO: AFP
The Economist
A little over a year ago, a small Chinese artificial intelligence lab shocked the world. DeepSeek released a pair of models which performed almost as well as the best Western ones, but were built for a fraction of the cost. The market value of Nvidia and other providers of AI infrastructure briefly tumbled as investors fretted (wrongly) that demand for their wares would slow in the face of such a leap in the efficiency of model-making.
Yet the release on April 24 of the lab’s new model, called v4, has been greeted with a shrug. Why?
