Current DeepSeek disruptions appear as the U.S.’s hand to take an AI lead over China

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek’s recent prominence has “woken up” the United States-based tech lobbyists, who are now waiting to see what Washington will do to counter China’s artificial intelligence capabilities. 

During his first week in the White House, US President Donald Trump vowed that he wants America to lead in AI against China. However, when DeepSeek introduced its two recent models to the US market, R1 and Version 3, Meta’s Llama and OpenAI’s ChatGPT almost became a forgotten case. 

The US AI industry is now worried that the Asian country will prove “tough to beat” if left unchecked, although some experts argue otherwise.

U.S. ahead of China in AI, policy expert says

Jeffrey Ding, an assistant professor at George Washington University and a leading AI policy expert, said that the US holds the lead in AI adoption and military mobilization. 

Speaking at the launch of a China-focused think tank at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) on February 3, Ding backed his statement with the state of China’s bland AI civil-military cooperation.

“The US has a pretty durable lead in this technology, not just in its ability to adopt it throughout the entire economy at scale, but also in its ability to mobilize civilian resources for military advantage,” Ding adduced.

DeepSeek’s claims might cause Nvidia legal problems

According to local Chinese news outlets, DeepSeek developed its new R1 model in just two months for under $6 million, which is only a fraction of what it cost OpenAI to build its latest model. The company claims it used Nvidia H800 and older A100 chips, designed to comply with US export restrictions, to train its systems.

Still, tech experts in the US say the Chinese firm could have had greater access to restricted US hardware than they care to admit. One of the critics is Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, who told CNBC that DeepSeek had access to 50,000 of the more advanced Nvidia H100 chips despite them falling under the export US export restrictions law. 

Last Friday, Financial analysts the Kobeissi Letter posted a X thread that probed the sales of Nvidia chips to Singapore, alleging that China might have sourced their advanced technological equipment from the South East Asian island country. 

Did DeepSeek illegally buy Nvidia's chips?

Since DeepSeek was founded, Nvidia's sales to Singapore are up a WHOPPING +740%.

The US is now PROBING if DeepSeek bought Nvidia's GPUs through third parties in Singapore.

This will have MASSIVE implications.

(a thread) pic.twitter.com/Jyxrd8zEIc

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) January 31, 2025

“A whopping $17.4 BILLION of Nvidia’s revenue came from Singapore versus $11.6 billion from China. Singapore has 99 data centers, not even enough to make the top 20 list. So, where are all of these GPUs going then?” the analysts questioned, predicting that the US could sue Nvidia for supplying China’s market through Singapore.

Some pro-China tech commentators like YouTuber Cyrus Janssen says the country’s dominance in academic AI research is the reason why DeepSeek is more proficient than American AI models. 

In a February 3 post on X, Janssen noted that eight of the world’s top ten AI research institutions are in China, with only Harvard and MIT representing the US. 

“I’ve said this many times before, but with DeepSeek and Alibaba’s breakthroughs in AI this week it is worth mentioning again. No one should ever bet against China and their tech industry.”, Janssen added.

Cryptopolitan Academy: How to Write a Web3 Resume That Lands Interviews - FREE Cheat Sheet