DeepSeek challenges OpenAI with drastically cheaper models, prompting discussions on the viability of proprietary versus open-source AI efforts.

When Chinese quant hedge fund founder Liang Wenfeng went into AI research, he took 10,000 Nvidia chips and assembled a team of young, ambitious talent. Two years later, DeepSeek exploded on the scene.

Despite US government's export controls to prevent advanced chips from being used to train Chinese firms' AI models, DeepSeek has trained its model using NVIDIA's H800 chips for under $6 million. However, this claim remains hotly debated in the tech community.