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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has offered a response to the chaos that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has enabled, as the ChatGPT rival has caused the stock market to drop by over $1,000,000,000,000.
Much of the AI and technology world has been sent into disarray after the release of DeepSeek, a ChatGPT-like open source AI technology that was made by a Chinese startup on a fraction of the budget of its western counterparts.
Reports indicate that it was developed with a budget of just $6,000,000 using Nvidia's H800 chips, and it has seen overall losses of around $1 trillion in the stock market with Nvidia especially suffering the biggest value drop in history.
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US President Donald Trump has declared that this should be a 'wakeup call' for the American AI industry, arguing that they should now be "laser-focused on competing to win" in light of DeepSeek's almost revolutionary developments.
However, Sam Altman has finally issued his own response to the news, as reported by the Daily Mail, which is particularly intriguing considering his status as one of the most powerful individuals in the world of artificial intelligence technology.
Altman outlined on X: "DeepSeek's R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price. We will obviously deliver much better models and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor! We will pull up some releases."
It's currently unclear what exactly these new releases and models will be or include, but it does arguably show that Altman isn't necessarily as threatened as many might have expected, and welcomes the push in the industry. Competition breeds innovation, after all.
deepseek's r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price.
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 28, 2025
we will obviously deliver much better models and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor! we will pull up some releases.
Altman continued on to articulate that OpenAI is "excited to continue to execute on our research roadmap and believe more compute is more important now than ever before to succeed at our mission," offering almost an inverse of what DeepSeek's low-budget approach strives for.
Finally, Altman reiterates his goal for achieving artificial general intelligence, outlining that he "look[s] forward to bringing you all AGI and beyond."
Many in the replies are more concerned about the short-term though, expressing that Altman has been 'deepseeked' after the AI bubble has supposedly popped.
"How about open sourcing your models," questions one user, whereas another adds that they're "looking forward to a monthly subscription price reduce" that isn't confirmed to be on its way.
What remains clear is that Altman and many other US AI giants have the support of the government, as President Trump only recently forged a $500,000,000 AI partnership that would look to instantly create 100,000 American jobs and even create personalized cancer vaccinations in the future.
