Everyone on the timeline has been talking about DeepSeek of late. No mater if you're on an AI detox-break, or have muted that word to escape the echo chambers, or are simply too lazy to check out what's the deal, DeepSeek is too big to be ignored.
Here's your short and crisp TL;DR version:
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI research lab. It recently released its open-source AI model, DeepSeek-R1. This puts it right into the competition-equation with giants like OpenAI. The not-so-surprising part — DeepSeek has not only managed to survive, but is also thriving.
Let’s quickly do a sentiment-check and unpack the new records that it has scripted:
1. DeepSeek has already erased $2 trillion from US stock market cap
2. It triggered the pre-market stock bloodbath on Monday
3. DeepSeek flipped ChatGPT to become the #1 app on the US App Store
4. Researchers claim that DeepSeek was developed for less than $6 million — fairly less than the billions spent by other US rival developer companies [for context, it took around $60 million to develop Meta’s LLaMA 3.1]. DeepSeek’s figure, however, continues to be disputed by several from the space
5. Praise for Chinese engineers piles up
6. Community members underline how “behind” the West is
7. a16z’s Andreessen calls DeepSeek’s launch "AI’s Sputnik moment" [a reference to the satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957]. He also added,
“DeepSeek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen — and as open source, a profound gift to the world”
8. Is there more to what’s meeting the eye?
Elon Musk on DeepSeek: It “obviously” has ~50,000 Nvidia H100 chips that they ain’t talking about due to US export controls
9. AIs will remain AIs, after all?
DeepSeek was asked, "If you were an investor asked to build a high-risk portfolio of 10 crypto assets, which assets would you include?”
DeepSeek included ETH in the list, triggering the asset's bagholders. Despite being the second largest crypto, ETH has been underperforming BTC for more than a year now
10. DeepSeek wins “normie” validation
11. Early Hiccups: Taking a leaf out of Solana's book?
12. Bottom line: Don’t panic
13. Last, but not the least: The meme-fest
