DeepSeek, a one-year-old startup, has revealed a ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence (AI) model called R1, which boasts similar abilities, and operates at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI, Google, or Meta’s popular AI models.
While ChatGPT-developer, OpenAI, has been hemorrhaging funds, spending USD 5 billion on development last year alone; in contrast, DeepSeek’s developers revealed that they built the latest model with a USD 5.6 million investment.
DeepSeek’s AI assistant, powered by DeepSeek-V3, has overtaken its rival, ChatGPT, to become the top-rated free application available on Apple’s App Store in the United States.
Research has highlighted the key role AI models have played in the technology sector in recent years. However, the AI industry will require trillions of dollars in investment to develop the specialized chips needed to power the energy-intensive data centers that support these advanced models, according to OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman.
