Zvi Mowshowitz, an AI expert and author of the Substack 'Don't Worry About the Vase,' dives into the market turmoil sparked by DeepSeek, a new AI model from China. He explains how DeepSeek caused a staggering loss for Nvidia and other tech giants in just one day. Discussion includes the implications of AI competition and market dynamics, the challenges for established players like Google and Meta, and the ethical considerations surrounding advanced AI. Zvi also touches on the future of AI technology and its financial impact.
The introduction of DeepSeek has caused a major market downturn, particularly impacting NVIDIA and highlighting fears of increased competition in AI.
Despite its low reported training costs, creating a competitor like DeepSeek entails substantial investments in data and infrastructure, complicating its actual affordability.
Deep dives
Impact of DeepSeek on Market Dynamics
The introduction of the DeepSeek AI model has significantly impacted the financial markets, particularly for companies heavily invested in AI, such as NVIDIA. Following the release of DeepSeek, NVIDIA's stock saw a sharp decline, dropping by 17% in a single day. This reflects the market's concern over a low-cost, high-performance competitor that poses a challenge to established players in the AI sector. The situation illustrates a growing unease around tech concentration and the rising influence of inexpensive alternatives in a landscape where many companies have staked their futures on AI.
Cost and Capability of AI Model Development
DeepSeek's development showcased a remarkable achievement in cost-efficient AI training, reportedly requiring only $5.5 million for significant model training. However, further insights revealed that this figure is misleading, as it doesn't account for the extensive investments made in data acquisition, engineering talent, and infrastructure. The model's creators undertook extensive optimization processes to maximize performance while minimizing costs, which involved a great deal of behind-the-scenes complexity. Ultimately, while the reported training cost seems low, the actual financial commitment required to replicate their success is much higher, in the hundreds of millions.
Shifts in the AI Competitive Landscape
The emergence of DeepSeek has raised critical questions regarding the competitive dynamics among major AI players like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. The affordable and open-source nature of DeepSeek potentially undermines the market position of these companies, as it allows for rapid replication and adaptation of its technologies. This disruption could prompt significant shifts in how AI models are developed and deployed, particularly as other organizations might prioritize open-access strategies similar to DeepSeek's approach. The ongoing developments indicate a troubling trend where access to powerful AI technologies increases, raising concerns about the implications of open-source artificial general intelligence for overall safety and control.
On Monday, the stock market tanked, seemingly in reaction to the emergence of DeepSeek, an open source AI model developed in China. Nvidia, the semiconductor giant that has been the largest winner of the AI boom, erased $589 billion in market cap, for the biggest one-day wipeout in US stock-market history. Other chipmakers and big tech giants also swooned. So how did DeepSeek do it? Is it a big threat to the American AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic? What does this say about export restrictions on US chips? On this special emergency session of the podcast, we spoke with Zvi Mowshowitz, an AI expert who authors the excellent Substack, Don’t Worry About the Vase. He answered all our questions and more to help understand what it means.
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