China has narrowed the artificial intelligence (AI) development gap with the United States to just three months in certain areas, according to Lee Kai-fu, the CEO of Chinese AI startup 01.AI.
Lee, a key figure in the global AI landscape and former head of Google China, highlighted that firms like DeepSeek have found innovative ways to use chips and apply algorithms more efficiently, propelling China closer to catching up with the U.S.
Lee made these remarks in an interview with Reuters, noting that the launch of DeepSeek’s AI reasoning model in January marked a significant milestone.
The model, trained with less advanced chips, was cheaper to develop compared to Western counterparts, challenging the assumption that U.S. sanctions were stalling China’s AI sector. "Previously, the gap was six to nine months in many areas. Now it’s probably just three months behind in core technologies, and actually ahead in some specific areas," Lee said.
He added that Washington’s semiconductor sanctions had presented short-term challenges for Chinese firms but had also spurred innovation. Lee pointed out how Chinese companies, like DeepSeek, had developed new algorithms under constraints, including a novel approach to reinforcement learning. This method shows users the reasoning behind AI decisions, a capability first developed by OpenAI but not yet available to users in its current form.
Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022, China’s tech sector has rapidly entered the generative AI race, but DeepSeek’s breakthrough has marked a key turning point. Until DeepSeek’s release, many Chinese tech leaders had expressed concerns about their lag behind Western rivals.
Lee, who founded 01.AI in March 2023, emphasized that investing in proprietary models was a "courageous" move for startups in a market dominated by well-established giants and fast-evolving open-source alternatives. While many of China’s top tech companies, including Baidu, Alibaba, and ByteDance, are building foundational models, 01.AI is focusing on practical AI applications, such as software solutions that help clients deploy AI technology effectively.
Earlier this month, 01.AI launched Wanzhi, a software platform designed to assist enterprises in adopting AI solutions. The company has already begun generating revenue, and Lee expects substantial growth in 2025, projecting that revenue will significantly exceed the $15 million achieved in 2024.
The U.S. said it struck Iranian radar sites on Qeshm Island and in Goruk after intercepting four drones, while Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they l...
The United States has announced an additional $38 million to support efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as hea...
Armenians will vote on Sunday in a parliamentary election that will determine whether Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan secures a new mandate to pursue ...
More than 6,000 people gathered outside a vote-counting centre in Seoul on Friday night, demanding this week’s local elections be repeated after bal...
The next time a goal goes in during a Champions League final, fans around the world could watch it from every angle at once — frozen, rotated and re...
Market reaction to DeepSeek’s preview of its next-generation artificial intelligence model has been relatively subdued, in sharp contrast to the global shock triggered by its breakthrough releases last year.
The United States has issued an international warning accusing Chinese firms, including AI start-up DeepSeek, of allegedly stealing intellectual property from American artificial intelligence labs.
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has introduced its newest model, DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale, claiming it can perform some tasks as well as the latest models from Google DeepMind and OpenAI.
Germany’s data protection commissioner has called on Apple and Google to block the Chinese AI app DeepSeek from their platforms over illegal data transfers and privacy concerns.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said in a statement that its Aerospace Force did not strike the Kuwait Airport passenger terminal on Wednesday, and that the destruction was instead caused by a failed U.S. Patriot missile.
The new AnewZ documentary, TARGET: Yerevan, builds its explosive case on exclusive, secret recordings originally published by Minval Politika.
Five Azerbaijani citizens have been killed and three others injured following drone attacks on two cargo vessels in the Sea of Azov, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
Azerbaijan has strongly rejected allegations published by CNN claiming that its territory was used for Israeli military and intelligence operations against Iran, describing the report as entirely baseless and demanding a retraction.
Armenia will hold parliamentary elections on 7 June 2026, a vote that will shape the country’s political direction for the next five years. Understanding how the electoral system converts votes into parliamentary power is key to following the outcome and its wider regional implications.
China will send an astronaut to its space station on Sunday for a one-year mission, the longest duration for the country so far. The mission will help study long-duration human physiology in space as China works toward a crewed Moon landing by 2030.
Anxiety over artificial intelligence is hardening among young workers as executives promote faster adoption and companies point to automation in fresh job cuts.
Hackers are increasingly using artificial intelligence to detect software vulnerabilities, reducing the time organisations have to respond to cyber threats, Verizon said in its annual data breach report.
China has launched the world’s first experiment to study how artificial human embryos develop in space, marking a major step in understanding whether humans could one day reproduce beyond Earth.
Japanese filmmaker Koji Fukada has said that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to “jump straight to the result” risks undermining the purpose of art, which he believes should be rooted in self-expression and a deeper understanding of the world.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment