The success of the Chinese start-up Deepseek is a “wake-up call” for American companies. They must now focus on “compete to win”. That is what US President Donald Trump said on Monday, the Reuters news agency reports.
Deepseek has succeeded in developing an AI model that is just as more efficient but more cost-efficient and more energy efficient than Chatgpt.
R1 is very successful. That is an advanced language model that can reason independently. It also shows all steps in the thinking process to the user. It can be used to solve complex mathematical issues, coding and analyzing data. The model was launched at the end of January and achieves similar performance with the O1 model of the American OpenAi.
The big difference, however, is the cost price: private users pay 200 dollars every month at OpenAI to gain unlimited access to O1. The R1 model is free at Deepseek. Professional users who want access to the API of Deepseek – an environment to allow software to communicate directly with the model – pay no less than 27 times less than with competitor OpenAi. And moreover, the DeepSek OpenSource model is: everyone has free access to the source code.
The news from Deepseek raises questions about the American dominance in AI. For example, the Chinese start-up does not use the most advanced chips from Nvidia. Trump is also aware. “I read about China and some companies in China, in particular one that has found a faster method for AI, and a much less expensive method. That’s good, because then you don’t have to spend that much money. I see that as something positive, as a plus, “said Trump. In his opinion, the American companies that focus on AI will follow. “We always have the ideas. We are always first. ”
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAi,, however, calls the Chinese chatbot “impressive”. “Especially seen what they can deliver for the price,” he says on X. But he indicates that OpenAi will deliver better models and it is also good to have a competitor. “We will come up with new expenses,” he assures.