DeepSeek is making waves in the AI landscape by offering advanced technology at significantly lower costs, a sentiment echoed by numerous start-up executives and investors.
This shift comes at a time when European tech start-ups are struggling to adopt AI models as swiftly as their US counterparts, largely due to disparities in funding access.
The entry of DeepSeek into the market is viewed as a potential game changer that could democratize AI and enhance competitiveness against larger tech firms.
Hemanth Mandapati, CEO of the German start-up Novo AI, recently transitioned from OpenAI's ChatGPT to DeepSeek's AI model, finding the process remarkably quick and easy.
This switch occurred just two weeks before Mandapati's interview at the GoWest conference in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Mandapati highlighted that DeepSeek's pricing is significantly lower, with costs up to five times cheaper than competitors, allowing users to save money without sacrificing performance.
Analysts estimate that DeepSeek's services are 20 to 40 times cheaper than OpenAI's, charging just $0.014 for 1 million input tokens compared to OpenAI's $2.5.
Despite the attractive pricing, major corporations remain hesitant to switch to DeepSeek, citing concerns over security certifications and ecosystem compatibility.
Additionally, concerns have arisen regarding DeepSeek's practices, including potential data copying from OpenAI and censorship issues, prompting investigations by European regulators.
DeepSeek's technical advancements and low training costs have gained attention, especially after it surpassed ChatGPT on the Apple App Store for productivity applications.
In response to DeepSeek's pricing changes, Microsoft has begun offering OpenAI's reasoning model for free, indicating a competitive shift in the market.
While DeepSeek is gaining traction, the landscape of foundational AI models remains largely dominated by companies like OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, and Google, with only France's Mistral recognized among the leaders.
