DeepSeek: The AI Game Changer Rewriting the Rules and Why Every Leader Should Pay Attention

The Rise of a Quiet Disruptor

Founded as a research lab with a mission to democratize artificial intelligence, DeepSeek has become synonymous with efficiency, accessibility, and ethical ambition. Unlike traditional models that require massive computational budgets, DeepSeek’s flagship systems, like DeepSeek-V3, achieve cutting-edge performance at a fraction of the cost—training models up to 5x faster while slashing expenses by 70%. 

But its real innovation isn’t technical—it’s philosophical. By open-sourcing core tools and datasets, DeepSeek transformed from a company into a movement, empowering startups in Nairobi, researchers in Mumbai, and enterprises in São Paulo to build AI solutions without gatekeepers.  

Think of it as the “Linux moment” for AI: a community-driven, scalable toolkit challenging Big Tech’s dominance.  

Why It Disrupted the Global AI World

DeepSeek's disruption of the global AI world can be attributed to several key factors:

Cost-Effectiveness

DeepSeek claims to have developed its DeepSeek-V3 model for under $6 million in just two months. This is significantly less than the billions of dollars spent by U.S. tech giants like OpenAI and Google on AI development. DeepSeek achieved this by using innovative training techniques and optimizing resource utilization. For example, they implemented custom communication schemes between chips to improve data transfer efficiency, memory-saving techniques, and reinforcement learning methods to minimize computational power requirements7. DeepSeek's ability to achieve these results with limited hardware raises questions about its optimization strategies and the industry's reliance on massive computational power8.

DeepSeek's cost efficiency is also reflected in its API pricing. DeepSeek-R1 costs $0.55 per million input tokens and $2.19 per million output tokens, significantly undercutting OpenAI's API rates of $15 and $60, respectively. This affordability has made DeepSeek's AI models accessible to a wider range of users and developers.

Open-Source Approach

DeepSeek has adopted an open-source approach, making its models available to the public. This has allowed developers worldwide to access, study, modify, and build upon DeepSeek's technology. This transparency and accessibility have fostered collaboration and innovation within the AI community. DeepSeek's open-source approach keeps the original mission of OpenAI alive by being truly open and empowering everyone.

Performance

Despite its cost-effectiveness and open-source nature, DeepSeek's models have demonstrated impressive performance. DeepSeek-R1, in particular, has been shown to rival or even surpass the performance of leading AI models like OpenAI's ChatGPT in various benchmarks, including reasoning, coding, and mathematical problem-solving.

Innovation Under Constraints

DeepSeek's success is particularly noteworthy given the U.S. export controls that restrict Chinese AI companies from accessing the most advanced AI chips. DeepSeek has overcome these constraints by designing energy-efficient algorithms and optimizing resource utilization6. This has demonstrated that innovation can thrive even in the face of limitations.

What We Should Learn from DeepSeek

DeepSeek's disruption of the global AI world offers several valuable lessons:

• Innovation Can Come from Unexpected Places: DeepSeek's success highlights the potential for innovation to emerge from outside of traditional tech hubs like Silicon Valley. For example, DeepSeek, a relatively unknown Chinese startup, was able to challenge the dominance of established U.S. tech giants.
• Costly Infrastructure May Not Be the Only Path: DeepSeek's success suggests that costly infrastructure may not be the only path to cutting-edge AI development. This highlights the importance of exploring alternative approaches and optimizing resource utilization to achieve high performance in AI. 
• Open-Source Can Drive Innovation: DeepSeek's open-source approach has fostered collaboration and accelerated the pace of development in the AI community. By making its models accessible to the public, DeepSeek has encouraged innovation and knowledge sharing within the AI field.

Conclusion: AGI Is Closer Than We Think

DeepSeek’s rapid advances in reasoning and adaptability—like its models diagnosing rare diseases with human-level accuracy—signal that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) isn’t a distant dream. 

Smart AI Marketing Newsletter Article No.18

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About the author

Eva Dong is the Lead of AI Monetization at Google Cloud. With over 10+ years of experience, she has held transformative leadership roles at McKinsey & Co and Visa Inc. Eva's technical expertise empowers her to create significant impact through data science and AI solutions. As a previous entrepreneur of an AI start-up, Eva is dedicated to empowering marketers to seize the future of AI-driven marketing. Connect with Eva.