OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said he would fast-track product releases and “deliver much better models” after the release of a powerful new model by Chinese start-up DeepSeek undermined Silicon Valley’s lead in a global artificial intelligence arms race.
DeepSeek’s generative AI chatbot, a direct rival to ChatGPT, is able to perform some tasks at the same level as recently released models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, despite claims it cost a fraction of the money and time to develop.
The release of DeepSeek’s R1 model last week and its rise to the top of Apple’s App Store has triggered a tech stock sell-off. Asian tech shares fell on Tuesday, in the wake of a Wall Street rout overnight. The Nasdaq fell 3 per cent and US chipmaker Nvidia, which produces the chips used to train large AI models slumped 17 per cent, losing $600bn in market capitalisation.