BU Today: Does China’s DeepSeek Represent a New—and Much Cheaper—Frontier in AI Technology?
Excerpt from BU Today | By: Molly Callahan | January 30, 2025 | Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via AP
As tech companies in the United States collectively pour billions—soon maybe trillions—of dollars into developing powerful artificial intelligence tools, a small Chinese technology start-up has shown the world that it might be possible to do it for less. A lot less. Raising all sorts of questions about the future of AI.
The scrappy Chinese start-up DeepSeek splashed onto the scene and upended US financial markets when it recently revealed that DeepSeek-R1, an AI model that rivals the best technology from domestic companies such as Microsoft and Google, was built for about $6 million—a sliver of what Meta is spending on its latest AI program.
Some engineers and scientists are questioning DeepSeek’s claim. On Wednesday, officials at OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, announced that they were investigating whether DeepSeek programmers had obtained proprietary technology without authorization to spur the development of DeepSeek-R1.
Regardless, the advances made by the DeepSeek team are impressive, says Mark Crovella, a Boston University College of Arts & Sciences professor of computer science and chair of academic affairs at the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences.