How did China’s DeepSeek outsmart ChatGPT?
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A new AI rival from China is shaking up Silicon Valley. DeepSeek matches ChatGPT’s power but says it was built faster and for a fraction of the cost. How did they do it, and what comes next?
In this episode:
- Caiwei Chen (@CaiweiC), reporter, MIT Technology Review
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Sarí el-Khalili, Sonia Bhagat, and Amy Walters, with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Melanie Marich, Hagir Saleh, Hanah Shokeir, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Noor Wazwaz.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad Al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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@AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, a deep dive into Deep Seek, the Chinese AI company that's disrupting the tech world. |
| 0:18.0 | Aftershocks were felt from Washington to Wall Street and Silicon Valley, signs that China may be catching up to the United world. Aftershocks were felt from Washington to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. |
| 0:22.3 | Signs that China may be catching up to the United States in the AI race sent tech stocks plunging. |
| 0:29.3 | Move over, ChatGPT, Deep Seek is in the spotlight. |
| 0:34.7 | I'm Kevin Horton, and this is The Take. |
| 0:44.5 | My name is Tai Wei Chen. |
| 0:46.3 | I am a tech reporter at MIT Tech Review, and I am based in Brooklyn, New York. |
| 0:52.3 | Taiway, welcome to the take. |
| 0:56.4 | Look, a week ago, very few people outside of China had even heard of Deep Seek, |
| 1:01.6 | yet this company was able to cause this panic in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. |
| 1:08.8 | Wall Street rattled by fears that China has caught up to America on artificial intelligence. |
| 1:13.9 | Invidia leading the sell-off down about 15 percent, tanking on the news that Deepseek has an |
| 1:19.0 | AI model similar to chat GPT, but operating at a fraction of the cost. |
| 1:24.6 | Be honest. Did you see this coming? |
| 1:38.3 | Honestly, yes and no. So at MIT Tech Review, I published an article that was relatively early on to the development of this hype. And we are only able to get it out so quickly because I started following the company's development before the new |
| 1:45.8 | model is even dropped. So the company, although relatively unknown globally, is already |
| 1:52.7 | having a little hype within the Chinese AI world and some AI researchers community. |
| 1:59.6 | So yes and no is your answer. |
| 2:01.1 | But I think if you really had, |
| 2:02.7 | you probably would have shorted Nvidia's stock |
| 2:04.8 | and you'd be on a beach instead of on the take. |
... |
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