DeepSeek gives China’s chipmakers a leg up in the race for cheaper AI. [English]

Hindustan Times Tech | Author | Read the full article

DeepSeek is a new artificial intelligence model that is helping Chinese chipmakers, like Huawei, to compete better in the market against powerful U.S. processors. Unlike traditional models that focus on raw processing power, DeepSeek emphasizes efficiency during the inference stage, which is when AI models make predictions or decisions. This shift could allow Chinese companies to close the gap with their U.S. counterparts, particularly in less demanding AI tasks.

Several Chinese companies have already announced plans to integrate DeepSeek's models into their products. This development is seen as a significant step for Chinese AI chipmakers, who have struggled to match the capabilities of Nvidia, a leading U.S. chip manufacturer. While DeepSeek's models are expected to enhance the performance of Chinese chips, analysts note that Nvidia still holds an advantage, especially in more complex AI training tasks.

Despite U.S. export restrictions on advanced AI chips, Nvidia can still sell less powerful chips for inference tasks in China. This situation creates an opportunity for Chinese firms to innovate and develop their own solutions. However, challenges remain, particularly in software performance and developer adoption, as many Chinese companies are still working to create alternatives to Nvidia's widely used CUDA platform.

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