DeepSeek (深度求索), the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up whose low-cost model stunned the world last year, yesterday launched a preview of its highly awaited new model adapted for Huawei (華為) chip technology, underlining China’s growing prowess in the sector.
The close collaboration with Huawei on the model, the V4, contrasts with DeepSeek’s past reliance on Nvidia’s chips, although the start-up did not disclose which processors it used to train its latest model.
The pro version of the model outperforms other open-source models in world-knowledge benchmarks, trailing only Google’s Gemini-Pro-3.1, which is a closed-source model, DeepSeek said.
Photo: Reuters
The V4 also comes in a lower-cost flash version. Preview versions allow the company to incorporate real-world feedback and make changes ahead of a final product launch. DeepSeek did not provide a timeline for when the model is expected to be finalized.
The launch of the preview comes one day after the White House accused China of stealing US AI intellectual property on an industrial scale, threatening to strain relations ahead of a summit between US and Chinese leaders next month.
DeepSeek has been at the center of that controversy, accused by Washington of contravening US export controls by acquiring cutting-edge Nvidia chips to train its models. Anthropic and OpenAI have also said it improperly “distilled” their proprietary models.
Hangzhou-based DeepSeek has acknowledged the use of Nvidia chips, but has not commented on whether those particular chips were subject to export bans. It has said that its V3 model used data naturally occurring and collected through Web crawling and it had not intentionally used synthetic data generated by OpenAI.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said it opposes “the baseless allegations,” adding that Beijing “attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights.”
Huawei, whose Ascend AI chip line is key to China’s efforts to reduce reliance on US cutting-edge semiconductor technology, yesterday said that it had worked closely with DeepSeek so the new V4 models could run across its full line of high-performance systems.
“The entire Ascend supernode product line now supports the DeepSeek V4 series models,” it said.
Washington began to restrict China’s access to advanced AI chips made by US firms in 2022 and since then Beijing has accelerated its push to achieve technological self-sufficiency — a boon for domestic chipmakers such as Huawei.
DeepSeek’s meteoric rise early last year has also pushed low-cost, open-source models to the forefront of China’s AI ecosystem, spurring on a slew of domestic rivals.
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