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DeepSeek changes the AI game

by Zahid Jadwat

DeepSeek. Picture: South China Morning Post.

 

DeepSeek launched a chatbot powered by its DeepSeek-R1 model this month, and it has taken the artificial intelligence world by storm. It does what established models do, but better and for a fraction of the cost.


Founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, the Chinese company quickly gained a reputation for powerful AI models that, some experts believe, outpace those from established companies like OpenAI and Google.


One of them is Bilal Kathrada, founder and CEO of IT Varsity. “DeepSeek is not just making waves, it actually created a tidal wave that wiped out the likes of OpenAI, Google’s Gemini and Meta,” he said, in an interview with Salaamedia this week.


“Whereas these companies were spending insane amounts of money, these guys came out of the blue and in two months they built an AI that is just as powerful as ChatGPT but a lot more efficient for $5 million,” he explained.


In Rands, that is R93.2 million. But it is far less than the whopping R1.2 trillion ($65 billion) Meta plans to spend on AI development in 2025, with comparable results.


Anyone can use it. Anyone can tweak it. Anywhere in the world. Kathrada’s institution, based in Durban, plans to do just that. He said IT Varsity planned to train its own chatbot in coming weeks.


“For once, and very decisively, the Global South has proven to the US that whatever you can do, we can do better. Not just better, but cheaper. Not just cheaper, but at a fraction of the fraction of the price and the computational resources,” he said.

“There’s opportunity for South African researchers to improve on the DeepSeek model because it’s open-source, meaning you can download the code base of DeepSeek, you can look at it, you can make changes, you can improve it and share your changes with the whole world.”

He was optimistic about the potential of generative AI, saying it could be used in a variety of fields. Academia is one, but even religion might be disrupted by AI.

 

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