The release of the new DeepSeek-R1 artificial intelligence (AI) model has shocked the tech world.
Launched on January 20 with little fanfare, the Chinese AI model was reportedly developed at only a fraction of the cost of OpenAI’s GPT-4o, and over a much shorter period of time. One Chinese commentator has called its release a “Pearl Harbor attack” on the AI world.
Though the reference to an “attack” may be a strong word, it alludes to the growing competition between the United States and China over dominance in the AI sphere, which the US had been leading thus far.
