This is a fascinating interview. His candid answers… especially about China being followers in tech to the last paragraph, shows how China is evolving. I highly recommend a read. I have to use page translation to English to read it.
Few things I liked are presented here…
“Undercurrent”: From an outside perspective, price cuts look like an attempt to snatch users, which is usually the case with price wars in the Internet era.
Liang Wenfeng : Attracting users is not our main purpose. We lowered the price because we have already reduced the cost while exploring the structure of the next generation model. On the other hand, we also believe that both API and AI should be accessible to everyone and affordable.
“Undercurrent”: Before this, most Chinese companies would directly copy this generation of Llama structure for application. Why did you start from the model structure?
Liang Wenfeng : If the goal is to develop applications, then it is a reasonable choice to continue using the Llama structure and quickly launch products. But our destination is AGI, which means we need to study new model structures to achieve stronger model capabilities under limited resources. This is one of the basic research required to scale up to larger models. In addition to the model structure, we have also done a lot of other research, including how to construct data, how to make the model more human-like, etc., which are all reflected in the models we released.
“Undercurrent”: The inertial perception left to most people in the era of the Internet and mobile Internet is that the United States is good at technological innovation, while China is better at application.
Liang Wenfeng : We believe that as the economy develops, China should gradually become a contributor, rather than just a free rider
“Undercurrent”: Why did DeepSeek V2 surprise many people in Silicon Valley?
Liang Wenfeng : This is a very common innovation among the numerous innovations that happen in the United States every day. They were surprised because this is a Chinese company that joined their game as an innovation contributor. After all, most Chinese companies are used to following rather than innovating.
“Undercurrent”: Why do Chinese companies - including large companies that have no shortage of money - so easily regard rapid commercialization as the top priority?
Liang Wenfeng : In the past 30 years, we have only emphasized making money and ignored innovation. Innovation is not entirely driven by business, but also requires curiosity and creativity. We are just bound by the inertia of the past, but it is also a phased process.
Liang Wenfeng : What we see is that China’s AI cannot always be in a follower position. We often say that China’s AI is one or two years behind the United States, but the real gap is the difference between originality and imitation.
“Undercurrent”: So you are also optimistic about this matter?
Liang Wenfeng : I grew up in a fifth-tier city in Guangdong in the 1980s. My father was a primary school teacher. In the 1990s, there were many opportunities to make money in Guangdong. At that time, many parents came to my house. Basically, they thought that studying was useless. But now when I look back, the concept has changed. Because it is difficult to make money, even the opportunity to drive a taxi may be gone. It has changed in a generation.
There will be more and more hardc0re innovations in the future. It may not be easy to understand now because the whole society needs to be educated by facts. When this society makes hardc0re innovators successful, the collective thinking will change. We just need a bunch of facts and a process.