With the rapid emergence of generative AI, it’s becoming more apparent that the technology requires vast resources to scale greater heights. For instance, OpenAI reportedly spends up to $700,000 daily to run ChatGPT. This is on top of the exorbitant amount of water required for cooling per query, with GPT-4 consuming up to four times more water for cooling than previously thought—three water bottles to generate a mere 100 words.
The ridiculous wads of cash required to foster sophisticated AI advances might have heavily contributed to OpenAI’s bankruptcy reports from last year, with projections of making a $5 billion loss within one year. However, a new Chinese AI startup, DeepSeek, is redefining these odds with a new flagship model dubbed DeepSeek-R1, which can compete with OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model on an even playing field, potentially giving top AI labs, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google a run for their money.
