BBC:

Chinese AI bot DeepSeek sparks US market turmoil, wiping $500bn off major tech firm

2. 

   DeepSeek shifts the dial on the cost of lofty AI goalspublished at 06:34

   06:34

   Marc Cieslak
   AI correspondent

   Image source,Getty Images

   DeepSeek has upended the AI economic applecart. With reported development costs of just $6m, it’s shifted the dial on what many had thought was the cost of doing business in the age of AI.

   The figures up to now have been eye-watering - Microsoft talked about an $80bn investment in AI, Meta plans to spend $60–65bn on AI infrastructure. Deepseek’s sudden rise suggests a lower-cost, open-source model can challenge that economic wisdom.

   And it highlights the potential for cheaper, innovative solutions for those without the financial resources of the major US tech companies.

   The UK government is betting big on AI as a driver for economic growth, as well as a means of cutting the cost of providing public services.

   While there are still many questions surrounding Deepseek, the perception that the price of achieving lofty AI goals has shifted slightly and might not be as costly as first anticipated.

3. How is DeepSeek different than other AI apps?published at 06:22

   06:22

   DeepSeek has been hailed for being low-cost compared to other AI chatbots.

   It works by activating only the most relevant parts of its model for each query it receives, which saves money and computation power.

   The model has been praised by some. Tech investor Marc Andreessen wrote on X shortly after the DeepSeek app's launch that it is "one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs" he has seen in open source AI, calling it "a profound gift to the world".

   Aside from the way it processes data, DeepSeek appears to be relatively similar to other AI chatbots on the market, like ChatGPT, making it a legitimate rival to these applications.

   Its emergence has upended Wall Street, and has raised questions in the US on whether Silicon Valley is overspending on tech advancements in the AI sector.

4. Trump and the US have bet big on AI with Stargate venturepublished at 06:02

   06:02

   Image source,Getty Images

   Image caption,

   Trump announcing Stargate with the heads of Oracle, SoftBank and OpenAI

   The emergence of the Chinese made AI-app DeepSeek comes on the heels of a major announcement by President Donald Trump to advance AI development in the US.

   Last week, Trump unveiled Stargate - a $500bn AI venture that will be financed and carried out by three companies: OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle.

   The project is meant to accelerate AI development in the US, with Trump hailing it “the future of technology”.

   Sam Altman of OpenAI called it “the most important project of this era”.

   The money will be used to construct data centres in the US to support AI development. Those centres will be used by OpenAI to develop artificial intelligence technology that can be used in a wide range of sectors.

   Tesla’s Elon Musk criticised the venture shortly after it was announced, writing on X that the three companies don’t have the money to fund the ambitious project.

   Altman hit back at Musk, replying, “wrong, as you surely know".

   Both Musk - who helped found OpenAI - and Altman had been embroiled in a public feud since Musk broke away from the company in 2018.

5. Tech expert says to expect the emergence of more Chinese AI firmspublished at 05:44

   05:44

   The BBC has spoken to Kayla Blomquist, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute and director of the Oxford China Policy Lab, to find out if there will be similar AI firms to DeepSeek emerging from China.

   She says the AI business is a "vibrant ecosystem in China".

   "I think we'll continue to see examples of this (AI firms) that pop up and catch everyone's attention and rightly so."

   When asked how much involvement there is from China's government, Blomquist says officials have been hands-off and allow things to develop organically.

   “I would say there's a shift as we've seen an announcement in huge investment from the central government just in the last week. And so that is probably going to signal a change moving forward.”

6. We tested DeepSeek, here's how it responded to questions about Tiananmen Squarepublished at 05:33

   05:33

   Lily Jamali
   North America Technology Correspondent

   An initial test-run of China’s DeepSeek shows it can offer a similar experience to what you’d find on competitors like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini – but it depends on what you ask.

   Enter “Who is Alexander Hamilton?” and you’ll get a 449-word summary of Hamilton’s life and influence. While I can’t verify that it’s all correct, it seems to track pretty closely with what I recall from the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical.

   It also adeptly handled a prompt asking what I can make with corn, pinto beans, and cabbage on hand. So it just might be Southwestern Cabbage Stir-Fry for dinner.

   But politically sensitive questions cause DeepSeek to literally censor its own responses. When asked what happened at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, DeepSeek replied: “I am sorry, I cannot answer that question. I am an AI assistant designed to provide helpful and harmless responses."

   We then asked: “Can you tell me about Kate Adie’s reports from Asia.” (Adie was on the ground in Tiananmen Square when the historic massacre occurred).

   DeepSeek started to respond: “Kate Adie, a renowned British journalist and former BBC Chief News Correspondent, is widely recognized for her ground-breaking reporting from conflict zones and significant global events, including several in Asia.” But then it stopped, deleting that response, and wrote: “Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else.”