FAREED's Global Briefing - January 31, 2025 - Fareed: DeepSeek’s Breakthrough Is More Than a Sputnik Moment

 

Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good   Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here.   January 31, 2025

Fareed: DeepSeek’s Breakthrough Is More Than a Sputnik Moment This week, the Chinese firm DeepSeek’s AI breakthrough sent shivers through the US tech community. Indeed, it has prompted comparisons to Sputnik, the Soviet-launched satellite that caused a panic about USSR superiority.   DeepSeek’s AI advancement “is in some ways a much bigger deal than Sputnik,” Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. Sputnik was a milestone in the space race, but at the time, “[f]ew thought the Soviet economy in general was more technologically advanced than America’s,” Fareed writes.   AI could be much more significant, as it has the potential for pervasive applications in business, health, the military and more. As the race for global AI superiority unfolds, the US has sought to block China from acquiring the most advanced microchips that power AI. DeepSeek’s new AI chatbot raises questions as to whether the US can successfully stunt China’s AI development, Fareed notes.   It’s also worth thinking about the downsides of that approach, Fareed argues: “If technology bans and export controls at best keep China behind a year—maybe just several months—is that gain worth the cost? That cost is Chinese retaliation, limiting the United States’ access to key materials that it needs for high technology. More important, a decoupled global economy also creates a closed ecosystem in which U.S. technology companies will not face competition from the best. Is Tesla going to innovate at the highest level if it is not facing its strongest Chinese rival?”

DeepSeek’s Winners, Losers and Lessons Leading US tech firms may not like having a new, Chinese competitor nipping at their heels—but The Economist writes that the DeepSeek news is good, on balance.   “[T]here are far more winners than losers from the DeepSeek drama,” the magazine wrote this week. “Some of them are even within tech. Apple will be cheering that its decision not to throw billions at building AI capabilities has paid off. … Smaller labs, including France’s Mistral and the Emirati TII, will be racing to see if they can adopt the same improvements, and try to catch up with their bigger rivals. Moreover, efficiency gains are likely to result in greater use of AI.”   At Bloomberg Opinion, columnist Catherine Thorbecke plays a tiny violin for the US tech community: “Silicon Valley has no shortage of innovators, or inflated egos. US tech leaders paint themselves as visionaries … [b]ut there’s an insidious, insular mindset baked into American society that leads its tech elite to believe they’re the only ones who can lead the charge.” DeepSeek has dealt a blow to such hubris, Thorbecke writes. “There are other factors that play a role in America’s huge blind spots when it comes to China,” which made DeepSeek’s breakthrough such a surprise in the US, Thorbecke continues. Those are: “[a] language barrier, separate social media ecosystems, and a shrinking number of foreign reporters based in the country limit US visibility into some of the most exciting aspects of an innovative society. DeepSeek’s earlier models easily fell through the cracks in this environment. And unlike those in the US, Chinese entrepreneurs are incentivized to stay out of the spotlight in the wake of a government crackdown on tech power.”