The story behind DeepSeek’s breakthrough
· 18 min
Episode The story behind DeepSeek’s breakthrough
This January, DeepSeek made an announcement that changed the artificial intelligence landscape. The Chinese start-up said that it had trained the latest in a series of competitive AI models, which appeared to be built much more cheaply than those of Silicon Valley competitors. The FT’s China technology correspondent, Eleanor Olcott, first wrote a story about the company last summer. She’s on today to discuss how DeepSeek’s founder Liang Wenfeng was able to finance and grow his company at a time when start-up funding is scarce in China, and often comes with too many strings attached.
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For further reading:
Liang Wenfeng, the DeepSeek founder panicking the tech world
The global AI race: is China catching up to the US?
Xi Jinping seizes DeepSeek moment to restore China tech chiefs to spotlight
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Follow Eleanor Olcott on X (@EleanorOlcott). Michela Tindera is on X (@mtindera07) and Bluesky (@mtindera.ft.com), or follow her on LinkedIn for updates about the show and more.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Links in the notes 8
- https://www.ft.com/content/b3668e7f-ab8d-473a-9358-12421382cca9
- https://www.ft.com/content/0e8d6f24-6d45-4de0-b209-8f2130341bae
- https://www.ft.com/content/27f062b4-cf1f-4353-8d7f-8690d972f2cf
- https://x.com/eleanorolcott?lang=en
- https://twitter.com/mtindera07
- https://bsky.app/profile/mtindera.ft.com
- https://www.ft.com/content/d23a01d8-4256-4142-a52c-a393ed6df1bc
- https://acast.com/privacy
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