This week, DeepSeek made headlines as its advances in artificial intelligence shook the global stock market.
The release of its multimodal R1 reasoning model created ripples across industries, marking a pivotal moment in the race for AI dominance.
The US stock market took a hit, underscoring the significance of this breakthrough and how it positions DeepSeek as a major player in the global AI landscape.
But what exactly is DeepSeek, and why is it so important? Let’s break it down.
What is DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI research lab that has remained somewhat of a mystery.
It’s believed to have started as a hedge fund before transitioning into AI research, staffed by exceptionally talented local AI researchers.
What sets DeepSeek apart is its commitment to open-source models and research papers, allowing the global AI community to learn from and benchmark its findings.
This transparency has fuelled global interest in its methodologies and results.
Why does it matter?
DeepSeek’s accomplishments highlight a seismic shift in the AI landscape.
It developed a GPT-4 class model with less than US$10 million, achieving something previously thought impossible without hundreds of millions in funding.
This efficiency has proved small teams with innovative techniques can achieve groundbreaking results, even with limited capital.
For the Caribbean, this demonstrates how resourceful and focused innovation can overcome barriers of scale and funding.
What does this mean for the China/US AI race?
The AI race has significant implications for economic growth, corporate efficiency and even national security.
DeepSeek’s breakthroughs show China is closing the gap with Silicon Valley, leveraging novel algorithms and efficient hardware usage.
While Silicon Valley’s leading labs like OpenAI, Google and Meta have set the frontier for years, DeepSeek’s achievements underscore that the frontier is more competitive than ever.
How did DeepSeek do so much with so little?
DeepSeek’s innovative approach lies in its use of a "mixture of experts” architecture. Instead of relying on a single dense model, DeepSeek’s system breaks tasks into specialised sub-models, routing and evaluating their outputs intelligently.
This architecture allowed it to maximise its hardware’s efficiency, making groundbreaking advances with GPUs considered less advanced than those available in the US.
Additionally, DeepSeek likely leveraged a process called "distillation," in which smaller models learn from larger ones.
While it remains unclear how it sourced it data, the quality and depth of that data must have been exceptional to achieve these results.
Why is open source important?
One of DeepSeek’s most valuable contributions is its open-source approach. By sharing its models and research, it has enabled developers worldwide to benchmark and validate its claims.
This openness promotes transparency and fosters innovation, allowing other AI labs to adapt and build on proven techniques.
[caption id="attachment_1135939
