Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) sensation DeepSeek plans to release key code and data to the public starting next week, an unusual step to share more of its core technology than rivals such as OpenAI have done.
The 20-month-old start-up, which surprised Silicon Valley with the sophistication of its AI models last month, plans to make its code repositories available to all developers and researchers.
That would allow anyone to download and build on or improve the code behind the well-regarded R1 or other platforms, it said in a post on X.
Photo: AFP
OPEN SOURCE
With the move, DeepSeek is pushing harder on an open-source approach to AI development that has won more advocates since its models outperformed OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc competitors in benchmark tests.
Companies such as Meta already make their models available to the public, allowing users to customize the platform for their own applications. OpenAI began as partially open source, but it has since retreated from that mission.
DeepSeek says it intends to go further by publicizing the underlying code, the data used to create it, and the way it develops and manages that code.
WIDER ADOPTION
It could also escalate a race between the US and China to develop ever-more advanced AI models. By making its coding secrets freely available, DeepSeek is helping to ensure wider adoption of its technology, which is already spurring concerns about security among governments from the US to Australia.
“We’re a tiny team exploring AGI [artificial general intelligence]. Starting next week, we’ll be open-sourcing 5 repos, sharing our small but sincere progress with full transparency,” DeepSeek announced on X yesterday.
A code and data repository is a digital storage space where the data and resources needed for training, running, and evaluating AI models are organized and managed. The Hangzhou, China-based start-up said its technology has been fully tested, deployed and documented.
DeepSeek’s surprising progress has forced larger, more established rivals like Baidu Inc (百度) to adopt the open-source framework, but global competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic PBC still keep their AI models, repositories and data proprietary.
Investors in the biggest US AI start-ups, such as Anthropic and xAI, have plowed tens of billions of US dollars into the industry in the hope of a big payday.
DeepSeek, which emerged out of a quantitative hedge fund run by founder Liang Wenfeng (梁文鋒), has so far not revealed outside backing and could face less pressure to build a revenue model.
“No ivory towers — just pure garage-energy and community-driven innovation,” the start-up said on X.
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