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How an open mind matters to DeepSeek's rise from obscurity, world's AI futureBy Shi Hao, Ma Yujie (Xinhua) 14:35, February 22, 2025
A visitor tries his hands on a holographic intelligent medical imaging system under the guidance of a staff member at the Light of Internet Expo in Wuzhen, east China's Zhejiang Province, Nov. 19, 2024. (Xinhua/Cai Xiangxin)
BEIJING, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- A month ago, DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup, barely two years old, sent shockwaves through the tech world and beyond with the release of its AI assistant DeepSeek-R1.
Since the launch, curious users have asked a whole range of questions to the reasoning model, often receiving unexpectedly insightful or impressive answers.
DeepSeek-R1 boasts performance on par with OpenAI-o1 but at a fraction of the cost. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised the chatbot on social media, calling it an "impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price."
DeepSeek's breakthrough, a demonstration of Chinese firms' innovation strength and high-tech advancement, has also triggered a buying spree of Chinese equities among global investors.
OPENING-UP PHILOSOPHY
When DeepSeek-R1 was asked "Why have you been able to achieve success?," the fully open-source model replied "By building an open ecosystem" among other answers.
The greatest takeaway from DeepSeek's success is that open source models are surpassing proprietary ones. "Because their work is published and open source, everyone can profit from it. That is the power of open research and open source," according to Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta.
"DeepSeek has taught us the value of open source... The thing about the open source community is people share. Everything that you contribute to open source is now in the ecosystem that other people can learn from," Joe Tsai, chairman of Alibaba Group, commented.
Researchers adjust a humanoid robot at an AI laboratory on Jan. 31, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)
The idea of open-sourcing DeepSeek-R1 is consistent with China's Global AI Governance Initiative, which "calls for global collaboration to foster the sound development of AI, share AI knowledge, and make AI technologies available to the public under open-source terms."
A few months ago, China pledged to provide short- and medium-term AI capacity building programs for fellow developing countries and disseminate AI knowledge and expertise both online and offline, so as to share AI knowledge and experience.
To this end, China plans to offer 10 AI workshops and seminars, primarily aimed at fellow developing countries, by the end of 2025.
EMBRACING NEW POSSIBILITIES
Among all the changes AI is bringing about, Chinese tech firm Timekettle clearly feels the impact of efficient and cost-effective AI translation tools.
The company specializing in producing translation earphones has moved swiftly to seize the new opportunity and integrate DeepSeek into the next version of its PolyPal software.
"Empowered by DeepSeek, our future products will deliver more accurate and smooth translations, especially in areas like medical and legal translation, where precision really matters," Liu Wei, Timekettle's product director, told Xinhua.
A visitor experiences an AI-driven native language communication device during the 21st China-ASEAN Expo at Nanning International Convention and Exhibition Center in Nanning, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhang Ailin)
Timekettle epitomizes a surge of interest across diverse industries in China in adopting AI technologies.
Notably, Chinese all-in-one social media app Weixin, also known as WeChat, operated by tech giant Tencent, has officially begun a gray-box test to integrate DeepSeek-R1 into its search function.
Other leading tech firms like Alibaba, Baidu and Huawei, as well as some AI startups, are either integrating with or have already connected to DeepSeek to boost business development and avoid being left behind.
Lu Feng, an industry analyst, said that the cost-effective and open-source nature of DeepSeek creates more possibilities for the model to be widely adopted across various sectors.
While AI applications are increasingly woven into the fabric of daily life and work, public concerns about job displacement are also arising.
A user on rednote, a popular lifestyle-sharing online platform in China, dreams of becoming an illustrator but feels pressured as he doubts his ability to compete with AI-generated artwork.
"Just go learning AI. If you can't beat it, join it. Utilize AI as a tool to handle the foundational elements, then make your own modifications. It significantly increases efficiency," another rednote user "Xiaochen" commented.
