DeepSeek's release of an expert system model that might replicate the performance of OpenAI's o1 at a portion of the cost has stunned investors and analysts. Markets reeled as Nvidia, a microchip and AI company, shed more than $500bn in market value in a record one-day loss for any business on Wall Street. Investors feared that DeepSeek challenged the dominance of US AI leaders.

Donald Trump DeepSeek as a "wake-up call". In China, DeepSeek's creator, Liang Wenfeng, has been hailed as a nationwide hero and koha-community.cz was welcomed to attend a symposium chaired by China's premier, Li Qiang. The pace at which China has been able to capture up with frontier AI research study in the US is speeding up.

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

In recent weeks, other Chinese technology companies have hurried to publish their most current 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 very first day of the lunar new year vacation, leading Chinese innovation business Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Alibaba, launched an updated variation of its Qwen 2.5 AI design, called Qwen 2.5-Max.

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

Some analysts said that the reality that Alibaba Cloud chose to launch Qwen 2.5-Max simply as services in China closed for the holidays showed the pressure that DeepSeek has actually placed on the domestic market. But Sheehan said it may also have been an effort to ride on the wave of publicity for Chinese models generated by DeepSeek's surprise.

Zhipu

Zhipu is a Beijing-based start-up that is backed by Alibaba. Called among China's "AI tigers", it remained in the headlines just recently not for its AI accomplishments but for the reality that it was blacklisted by the US federal government. On 15 January, Zhipu was among more than two dozen Chinese entities contributed to an US limited trade list. Zhipu in particular was included for allegedly aiding China's military advancement with its AI advancement. Zhipu condemned the choice and said it lacked an accurate basis.

Claims about military uplift aside, it is clear that Zhipu's development in the AI area is rapid. Its most recent item is AutoGLM, an AI assistant app launched in October, which assists users to operate their smart devices with complicated voice commands.

Moonshot AI

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

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

Its offering, Kimi k1.5, is the updated variation of Kimi, which was released in October 2023. It attracted attention for being the first AI assistant that might process 200,000 Chinese characters in a single timely. Moonshot AI later said Kimi's capability had actually been upgraded to be able to deal with 2m Chinese characters.

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

ByteDance

Another lunar new year release came from ByteDance, TikTok's moms and dad business. On 29 January it revealed Doubao-1.5-pro, an upgrade to its flagship AI model, which it said could outperform OpenAI's o1 in certain tests.

In addition to efficiency, Chinese business 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 comparison, OpenAI's o1 costs the equivalent of 438 yuan for the same use.

Tencent

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