Chinese AI Firm Says Its Open Source New Model Is Beating OpenAI's Most Advanced Publicly Released Model

A win for open source.

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably aware that AI is developing at a breakneck pace.

Early yesterday morning, a gleeful post on X-formerly-Twitter by Chinese AI firm DeepSeek announced a new model called R1 — a "reasoning" AI model which the outfit says is performing "on par" with OpenAI's o1, a splashy model released last month.

And unlike 01, DeepSeek R1 is open source, meaning hobbyists and researchers can tinker with it at home and even release their own versions.

The reasoning model is said to narrowly edge out OpenAI's system in "math, code, and reasoning tasks." If the claim holds up — a big "if," since the results haven't yet been independently verified — it's an exciting milestone for a much smaller lab in the AI research space, which is currently dominated by deep-pocketed ventures like OpenAI and Apple — and especially for proponents of open source AI development, with DeepSeek taking a dig at the closed-source OpenAI by celebrating its work as pushing the "boundaries of **open AI**!"

Open AI

Under the open source model, anyone has the legal rights to use, alter, and distribute DeepSeek's software (household-name open source projects include Mozilla Firefox, VLC Media Player, and Linux.)

In theory, it's the most egalitarian approach to software development. However, not everyone's convinced that open source AI is the way forward; in an interview on the podcast "Tech Won't Save Us," professor of economics at University College London Cecelia Rikap argued that open source AI's development is often still connected to a for-profit business model.

"In principal, open source is very positive... the more we share knowledge, the more knowledge we are producing," she said. "What Amazon, Google and Meta have been doing is putting pieces of the puzzle in open source, [which] helps them to gain popularity... It is also a way to get people working for free in improving pieces of the puzzle, which only make sense together with the other pieces, and some of those pieces are kept secret, registered as copyright... basically in the end, those who profit from collaborative development are the same Big Tech."

DeepSeek is no exception. The AI firm is a subsidiary of a Hangzhou-based hedge fund called High-Flyer, which trades through the Securities and Futures Commission out of Hong Kong. So on a certain level, yes it's a win for the little guys. But on another, it's a victory for Chinese financiers, not unlike Meta — which has also used open source development practices to fuel its rapid market climb.

So while this is still an impressive feat for the Chinese tech industry specifically and open source AI-development more broadly, only time will tell if the cheap new model will lead to equally egalitarian use cases for the advancement of all, or if it will be yet another investor's footnote in the tech sector's quest for profit.

And in the AI horserace, OpenAI's o3 is said to be prepping for launch.

More on Chinese AI: The Chinese Military Is Weaponizing Facebook's Open Source AI