U.S. attempts to prevent China from catching up in AI
Date
1/26/2025 4:21:34 AM
(MENAFN) The U.S. has attempted to prevent China from catching up in artificial intelligence (AI), but recent breakthroughs by Chinese companies are disrupting the industry and putting U.S. policymakers in a difficult position. China's rapid progress, particularly in large language modeling technology, has significantly undermined American efforts to maintain a lead. During the 2025 World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek unveiled its latest open-source model, DeepSeek-R1, which achieved a key technological breakthrough by using deep learning methods to enhance AI's intrinsic inference capabilities. The model demonstrated strong performance in tasks such as math, programming, and natural language inference, rivaling leading models from companies like OpenAI.
Chinese AI technology has become a prominent topic at the WEF's discussions in Davos, Switzerland. Max Tegmark, an AI expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, highlighted China's rapid progress, noting that while it lagged behind in advanced language models a year ago, it has now caught up. He warned against undermining scientific cooperation over geopolitical concerns, calling it a "big mistake." Just months after OpenAI launched its O1 inference model in September 2024, Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen team introduced the QwQ-32B-Preview research model, which outperformed O1 in several tests. In December, DeepSeek launched its DeepSeek-V3 hybrid model, which surpassed open-source models like Llama-3.1-405B in multiple tests and showed similar results to top closed-source models such as GPT-4o and Claude-3.5-Sonnet, all while being more cost-effective.
The Economist noted that the U.S.'s attempts to curb China's AI progress are now facing significant setbacks, with China's advancements potentially reshaping the AI industry's economic landscape. The New York Times pointed out that Chinese companies are producing cheaper and more competitive models compared to U.S. giants like Google and OpenAI. Jeffrey Deng, an assistant professor at George Washington University, attributed China's success to the need to innovate in response to U.S. restrictions on Chinese chips, pushing Chinese engineers to develop more efficient AI models. Beyond large language models, physical AI is also creating major opportunities for China. Li Yifan, co-founder of Hesai Technology, emphasized that China's advantages in supply chain management, manufacturing, and cost control give it a significant edge in integrating digital AI with physical products, such as in the automotive, robotics, and consumer electronics sectors.
MENAFN26012025000045015687ID1109129687
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.