US President Donald Trump has claimed that Chinese company DeepSeek should be a “wake up call” for American companies.
DeepSeek has claimed that its AI models are similar to US versions, such as OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Gemini by Google – but at a much lower cost.
The revelation has shocked Wall Street, with sharp falls in US shares including tech firm Nvidia, with the company losing almost £482bn in market value.
However, Trump has said the success of the Chinese firm should only inspire American companies to do better.
DeepSeek has claimed that its AI models are similar to US ones, but at a much lower cost
DeepSeek app
Addressing Republicans in Miami on Monday, the US president said: “The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company should be a wakeup call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win.”
Pointing to DeepSeek’s ability to use fewer computing resources, he added: “I view that as a positive, as an asset… you won’t be spending as much, and you’ll get the same result, hopefully.”
On Monday, DeepSeek had overtaken ChatGPT in Apple store downloads.
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Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, acknowledged the Chinese rival in a post on X, writing: “DeepSeek’s r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price.”
Agreeing with Trump’s drive for competition, Altman added: “We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! We will pull up some releases.”
Last week, the US president announced a potential £401bn AI investment by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank in Stargate.
The project would aim to build more computing power to improve AI development.
News of the growing DeepSeek app has caused concerns, although Trump has not shown signs of worry
Getty
News of the growing DeepSeek app has caused concerns, although Trump has not shown signs of worry.
Speaking in Florida, the US president claimed Chinese leaders told him the US had the best scientists in the world.
“We always have the ideas. We’re always first. So I would say that’s a positive that could be very much a positive development,” he said.
He added: “So instead of spending billions and billions, you’ll spend less, and you’ll come up with, hopefully, the same solution.”
Nevertheless, the Chinese firm’s rise has not been smooth sailing, with DeepSeek reporting cyber attacks on its software early this week.