Deepseek chaos: America First may lose often

Deepseek chaos: America First may lose often

The remarkable rise of deepseek causes excitement in the world of artificial intelligence and threatens the dominance of USA that was considered a festival a week ago. The fact that a little-known Chinese startup has developed a model that can compete with leading US ACI systems in question that it needs a lot of money and unlimited access to state-of-the-art computer chips to train AI technology. It actually seems impossible that a Chinese AI startup can compete at eye level with Openai’s GPT-4O and Google's Gemini.

The answer of the USA to Deepseek

Now President Donald Trump is faced with the challenge of deciding how to react to these developments. The United States have imposed strict restrictions on the aim of preventing Chinese companies from buying or developing their own state-of-the-art computer chips that are necessary for the training of AI models. These chips are at the center of the arms in the area of AI, and the export restrictions are intended to prevent China from catching up.

The consequences of the export restrictions

Some experts argue that the success of Deepseek-the company claims to have trained its new AI model R1 to a fraction of the costs and with significantly less high-quality chips than the leading AI models-shows that the export restrictions on the bid and the first Trump administration have backfired. These strict provisions could have driven Beijing into the tightness, which forces Chinese companies to find innovative solutions or to develop their own chips.

"Instead of braking China, these export controls could accelerate China's AI capacity by stimulating the country for innovation," said John Villasenor, professor of engineering and law at UCLA, in a telephone interview with CNN. "The export controls are arguably counterproductive."

The reaction of the expert community

This knowledge would be a significant blow to the strict measures that were taken under Trump and the former President Joe Biden-and also for those who are planned during the new Trump administration. "We accidentally increased your technical level," wrote the AI researcher Gary Marcus in a Substack Post . "It is clear that the game has changed."

controversy around Deepseek

Trump may remain unimpressed. "I think Trump will take over even harder," said Ed Mills, Washington Policy Analyst at Raymond James, and noticed that Trump was surrounded by China-Hawks like Foreign Minister Marco Rubio. "His advisors point out more restrictions, not less."

If Trump exerts additional pressure on China in the AI area, supporters of a more aggressive strategy believe that China's AI card house could collapse. Skeptics, on the other hand, are not sure to what extent Deepseek is actually a gamuchanger. They argue that the company's success may either be based on a supply of high -quality chips that were created before the restrictions or that the semiconductors were acquired on the black market.

The black market for chips

"It is either a Sputnik moment or a Potemkin moment," said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies at the Yale School of Management, in an email to CNN. "It is either really disruptive or misleading, based on what is said to be called Nvidia chips and others before the export restrictions."

Sonnenfeld added that if it is a "sputnik-like disruption", it would be a blow for the pure dependence on competitive private markets without state partnerships and national industrial policy.

prospects and challenges

Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale Ai, told CNBC that Deepseek has 50,000 state -of -the -art chips that they “obviously cannot talk about because it violates the United States export controls.”

Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management, advised the investors to enjoy the allegations of deepseek "with caution", as there is no concrete evidence of underpinning these claims. "China claims that it found the silver remedy, but it could be like the student who says that he has a friend who is only at a different school," said Hogan in a telephone interview and pointed out that there was a long -term skepticism under Western economists about the accuracy of China's economic statistics.

When Deepseek actually has access to state -of -the -art chips, the argument supports that export controls should be tightened. Mills points out that there is a “very active” black market for high -performance chips and that the export controls are enforced.

conclusion and outlook

"This was a game from Whack-A-Mole," said Mills. "There are still blatant loopholes that need to be closed." Mills referred to the need for a stronger enforcement and further restrictions on the river of state -of -the -art computer chips. Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor of the United States under Biden, has recognized that the export controls are a process that is constantly progressing.

"This is an iterative process. We learn, you learn. We learn, you learn," said Sullivan in May Fireside chats.

Sullivan also noticed that China tried to overwhelm export controls by projecting a feeling of inevitable for his AI ambitions. "The VR China started a massive and tireless information campaign to say basically: 'This is hopeless. Resistance is pointless. We will break through these controls," added Sullivan.

The operations are enormous. Many in Washington were aware that the United States are in the race for AI. But this race could be closer and possibly significantly cheaper than previously thought.