DeepSeek's release of an artificial intelligence model that might reproduce the efficiency of OpenAI's o1 at a portion of the expense has stunned financiers and experts. Markets reeled as Nvidia, a microchip and AI company, shed more than $500bn in market value in a record one-day loss for any company on Wall Street. Investors feared that DeepSeek challenged the supremacy of US AI leaders.

Donald Trump explained DeepSeek as a "wake-up call". In China, DeepSeek's founder, Liang Wenfeng, has been hailed as a nationwide hero and was invited to participate in a seminar chaired by China's premier, Li Qiang. The pace at which China has been able to overtake frontier AI research in the US is accelerating.

But DeepSeek is not the only Chinese company to have innovated regardless of the embargo on sophisticated US innovation. Matt Sheehan, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a specialist on Chinese AI, said: "If the US government thinks all we need to do is squash DeepSeek and then we'll be OK, then we remain in for a disrespectful surprise."

In current weeks, other Chinese technology companies have hurried to publish their latest AI designs, which they claim are on a par with those established by DeepSeek and OpenAI.

But what are the Chinese AI companies that could match DeepSeek's effect?

Alibaba Cloud

On 29 January, the first day of the lunar new year vacation, leading Chinese technology business Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Alibaba, launched an updated version of its Qwen 2.5 AI design, called Qwen 2.5-Max.

According to Alibaba Cloud, Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms DeepSeek V3 and Meta's Llama 3.1 throughout 11 standards. The business said that it was "full of confidence in the next version of Qwen 2.5-Max".

Some experts said that the truth that Alibaba Cloud chose to release Qwen 2.5-Max just as organizations in China closed for the vacations showed the pressure that DeepSeek has actually placed on the domestic market. But Sheehan said it might also have been an attempt to ride on the wave of publicity for Chinese models produced by DeepSeek's surprise.

Zhipu

Zhipu is a Beijing-based start-up that is backed by Alibaba. Referred to as among China's "AI tigers", forum.altaycoins.com it remained in the headlines just recently not for its AI achievements but for the fact that it was blacklisted by the US federal government. On 15 January, Zhipu was one of more than 2 lots Chinese entities contributed to an US limited trade list. Zhipu in specific was added for presumably aiding China's military advancement with its AI advancement. Zhipu condemned the choice and said it lacked a factual basis.

Claims about military uplift aside, it is clear that Zhipu's development in the AI space is rapid. Its newest is AutoGLM, an AI assistant app released in October, which helps users to run their mobile phones with intricate voice commands.

Moonshot AI

On the same day that DeepSeek released its R1 model, 20 January, another Chinese start-up launched an LLM that it claimed might likewise challenge OpenAI's o1 on mathematics and reasoning.

Moonshot AI is another Alibaba-backed AI start-up, based in Beijing and valued at $3.3 bn. Unlike Alibaba, a behemoth that was founded in 1999, Moonshot AI is a relative newbie. Like DeepSeek, it was established in 2023.

Its offering, Kimi k1.5, is the updated version of Kimi, which was launched in October 2023. It attracted attention for being the very first AI assistant that might process 200,000 Chinese characters in a single timely. Moonshot AI later on said Kimi's ability had been updated to be able to handle 2m Chinese characters.

Moonshot AI "remains in the top tiers of Chinese start-ups", Sheehan said. "It wouldn't amaze me at all if Moonshot or Zhipu has a design that equates to or comes close to DeepSeek in performance within the next weeks or months."

ByteDance

Another lunar new year release came from ByteDance, TikTok's parent company. On 29 January it unveiled Doubao-1.5-professional, an upgrade to its flagship AI model, which it said might exceed OpenAI's o1 in certain tests.

Along with performance, Chinese companies are challenging their US rivals on cost. Doubao's most effective variation is priced at 9 yuan per million tokens, which is nearly half the cost of DeepSeek's offering for DeepSeek-R1. For contrast, OpenAI's o1 costs the equivalent of 438 yuan for the same use.

Tencent

Mainly understood for video gaming and WeChat, the common messaging app, Tencent has likewise made strides in AI. Its flagship design is a text-to-video generator called Hunyuan, which Tencent said can perform in addition to Meta's Llama 3.1.