New Chinese $6 MM DeepSeek AI model outpertforms US models that cost billions to make, and it runs on cheaper chips.
intercst
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ie not NVIDIA?
Steve
Some are saying they used NVIDIA H800s, others are saying that they have around 50,000 H100s that they can’t talk about…
And, it’s open source.
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Yes!
Experts say that the fact that we’ve denied China the latest generation chips forced them to use a workaround using cheaper hardware and less computing power. That’s allowing them to create first-rate AI models at a fraction of the cost.
You saw the same thing in Russia at the fall of the Soviet Union. When things opened up, IBM started hiring Russian programmers and they were very efficient in their code design because they had less computer power to waste with inefficiency.
Nvida CEO Jensen Huang is apparently a big fan of the new, cheap Chinese AI.
The last 20 minutes of the video is an interview with Aravind Srinivas who’s been at the cutting edge of cheap, efficient AI models for years.
intercst
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Can’t be true. I’ve been repeatedly assured that their schools only teach to the test, and their technology is all derivative, and they can’t really invent anything at all.
Why are you so down on America?
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This feels like an overreaction—a storm in a teacup. It seems like America is gearing up to take what it wants, even if it means stirring up some drama to muster the courage to take the kid’s lollipop. This is America’s rallying cry! The AI Tech Bros are now facing a real challenge, and the determination to dominate is palpable.
Sure, it is not working out so well with Intel against TSMC, but when it comes to AI, we should be leading the charge, right? After all, we’ve been at the forefront of discovering and inventing everything that defines the modern world. There’s no way we’re letting others, especially from the East (yet today we should say from the West), outpace us.
That’s is the spirit that is promoted throughout the land.
Clear thinking individuals should stay clear.
tj
At this point it is still very unclear what capabilities any given family of AI’s has (as foci and algorithmic architectures are all over the map), let alone see how to benchmark real capabilities and real world applications.
Ask most tech “reporters” to explain AI to you beyond their basic handwaves and almost all you will hear is techie word salad repeated endlessly.
AI is now in super hype mode, and the underlying realities remain obscure
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Let’s slap steep tariffs on that to force deepseek to produce in the US.
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Don’t want to speak for Goof, but I will. I’m guessing he was being sarcastic. This is based on past threads with him disagreeing with others questioning China’s ability to dominate with their rote form of education. DeepSeek dominates AI models in the US, and it was developed must faster and much cheaper.
I didn’t catch the rallying cry, what is it? Is it…
- Let’s Destroy Our EV Industry!
- Our Inefficient AI Will Destroy the Grid!
- We Can’t Make It, But We’ll Take It!
USA! USA! USA!
Our current economic policies are rooted in the past, not the future. It’s a foregone conclusion that others will outpace the US.
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No I totally get that the tone was sarcastic.
No one can underestimate the power of the US. It is a resilient and robust.
The difference today is that the power difference has shrunk. Yet it is still much bigger and more powerful than the next kid on the block. America has to work a bit harder today than when it did yesterday to compete, and because of that it is not as happy as it was.
Except when it is constrained by ideological purity being made top priority, like at some of the companies I worked for.
Steve
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You are consistent with the exaggeration. My and others suggesting that Chinese culture under Xi is less innovative than the west does not mean the Chinese never innovate. If you look at human history one finds that new ideas and technology do not arise at the same pace in all cultures. One finds hot spots, and those cultures tend to be ones that prioritize the individual more than most. Examples include democratic ancient Greece and capitalist renaissance Venice/Florence. It is I think the reason why the industrial revolution first took root in Protestant rather than Catholic nations. Even in more totalitarian regimes, innovation flourishes during periods of increased secularism (Arab culture during Medieval times) and meritocracy (Song China dynasty).
Individuals tend to be more creative than committees. The fastest way to increase innovation is to reward the individual creator and to tolerate revolutionary ideas. These tend to be inconsistently applied in a centrally planned economy. Certainly in Xi’s economy.
Xi’s China can certainly make existing products better, whether it be EVs, batteries, and now AI. But despite many more STEM scientists than America the novel technological advances that dramatically change the status quo have not been coming from China, whether it be Crispr gene editing, RNA vaccines, smart phones, GPS, birth control patches, heat pump HVACs, the list goes on.
Even with BEVs it was Tesla not BYD who built the first one that was publicly recognized as being better than an equivalently priced gas car. That was the paradigm shift that initiated the EV revolution. In fact, it is still not certain that BYD can build an all-electric car as profitable as the gas model it is selling price comparable with.
Kudos to the Chinese company that developed an AI using lesser chips that can compete with ChatGPT. But the point is they didn’t produce the first AI agent. They improved on an existing concept.
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Curious you left out ancient China, which had paper, gunpowder, the compass, printing (moveable type!), paper money, the umbrella, even seismometers, and they weren’t exactly known for their individualism under the Emperors.
You didn’t even mention the medieval Arabs, who invented algebra and Arabic numerals, windmills, optics and magnifying glasses, the concept of hospitals, shale oil extraction and the distillation of kerosene, steel mills and mechanical clocks and so much more. Was this a democracy which celebrated the individual?
You really have a lot of reading to do.
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From my post:
Why do you make such allegations?
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For the record the Industrial Revolution began in Europe. The first railroad: England. The first steam engine: England. The first internal combustion engine: France. The first radio transmission: Italy. The first power loom: England. The Bessemer Process for smelting steel: England. The Watt engine: England. The first locomotive: England. First incandescent lamp: Belgium. Dynamite: Sweden.
The US, thanks to abundant natural resources, took these inventions and turned into the colossus of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Very few of the Industrial Revolution inventions were actually created here.
But you can continue to think China is only capable of copying, if it makes you happy.
Sigh…Again, rather than respond to the argument actually made, you exaggerate it to the only argument you can comfortably attack.
Do you seriously not see the dishonesty in that?
Put Chinese or any ethnicity in a culture where individual initiative gets consistently rewarded and the pace of innovation increases. Simple human nature.
To emphasize that point. The Song Dynasty is when the Chinese made a lot of technical innovations:
The application of movable type printing advanced the already widespread use of woodblock printing to educate and amuse Confucian students and the masses. The application of new weapons employing the use of gunpowder enabled the Song to ward off its militant enemies—the Liao, Western Xia, and Jin with weapons such as cannons—until its collapse to the Mongol forces of Kublai Khan in the late 13th century.
Notable advances in civil engineering, nautics, and metallurgy were made in Song China, as well as the introduction of the windmill to China during the thirteenth century. These advances, along with the introduction of paper-printed money, helped revolutionize and sustain the economy of the Song dynasty. Science and technology of the Song dynasty - Wikipedia.
The Song Dynasty might also have been the first meritocracy:
Song scholar-officials were granted ranks, honors, and career appointments according to standards of merit more codified and objective than in the Tang dynasty.[40] The anonymity of exam papers guarded against fraud and favoritism by the judges, and to avoid judgements based upon the candidate’s calligraphy, a bureau of copyists recopied each paper before grading. Society of the Song dynasty - Wikipedia
It may have also been the first capitalist economy:
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You don’t need to. It’s Open Source.
intercst
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The US is in decline. I’m not saying that to bash the US, but rather con cariño. I love my country, so much so that I don’t shy away from holding it accountable when we’re heading down the wrong path. Suggesting that the US has to work harder today than say…during the Greatest Generation is bonkers. Here’s the difference - the divided nature of our country, spurred on by our elected leaders, will be our undoing. It’s already happening, get ready for it to get much, much worse.
As long as it’s a culture without racism. Having a racially homogenous culture helps with that.
No killer app.
Means nothing much.
Cheaper? Built on Meta’s open source? Probably. Just copy and paste, then modify.
Frankly the other approach is to ask a quant computer to do the work. Not yet but soon enough. Perhaps 5 years is my guess.
Sorry but the video if you watch it says they were using NVDA chips.
Google has spent $51 billion so far and replaced many top of page results. Dumb stuff. For what? Poorer sales. Go figure.