AsianFin -- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the growing competition from Chinese AI firm DeepSeek, whose chatbot has made significant strides, even matching ChatGPT in certain areas. However, Altman downplayed the company's research contributions, suggesting that while their work was impressive, it did not pose a groundbreaking challenge to OpenAI.
“They did some nice work,” Altman remarked during an interview on The Times Tech Podcast released on February 11. He highlighted DeepSeek’s use of chain-of-thought (CoT) prompting as a notable feature that resonated with users, but emphasized that it didn’t mark a major research breakthrough.
DeepSeek’s rapid rise has had an immediate impact on the AI landscape, notably causing a dip in US tech stocks when it gained attention. In contrast to OpenAI's multibillion-dollar investments in AI development, DeepSeek's models were reportedly built at a fraction of the cost, sparking debates on whether companies like OpenAI could face increasing competition from lower-cost alternatives.
While Altman admitted that DeepSeek’s rise surprised him, he assured that OpenAI was ready for growing competition. “We knew that at some point, we would get more serious competitors and models that were very capable,” he said. “But you don’t know when you wake up any given morning that that’s going to be the morning.”
Altman’s remarks came as global leaders, tech executives, and researchers gathered in Paris for the AI Action Summit, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. The summit focused on establishing common ground for AI governance, safety, and ethics.
Addressing concerns about AI development across different geopolitical contexts, Altman acknowledged the inevitability of regional differences. “You can imagine a sort of hierarchy of what AI has to do globally, [...] what AI has to do with this country, this country, and then individual users,” he said.
He also discussed the potential for AI to shift toward either more authoritarian control or a more democratic, user-empowering model, expressing a preference for the latter.
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