George Dourakoglou 𝕏

China Destroyed Silicon Valley.

They built an AI model that beats OpenAI, Google, and Meta.

It only cost them $6M (vs OpenAI's $17.9 billion).

Here's how DeepSeek is changing AI &amp; why Sam Altman &amp; the US government are worried:🧵 

The story starts with an unexpected player.

High Flyer Quant, an $8 billion Chinese hedge fund.

They launched DeepSeek with one goal: “solve the mystery of AGI with curiosity.”

Unlike OpenAI’s detailed plans, DeepSeek stayed secretive (but they were about to change AI forever):

Their model had 3 big breakthroughs:

• Beat GPT-4 and Claude in advanced math tests
• Outperformed Meta’s Llama in reasoning tasks
• Dominated coding competitions and bug detection

While US giants spent billions, DeepSeek did it with scraps… 

The AI industry faced 3 big challenges:

• The US banned China from advanced Nvidia H100 chips
• Export controls limited computing power
• Tech transfer rules were strict

But DeepSeek turned these challenges into advantages… 

Their technical genius changed everything:

• They mastered 8-bit floating-point training (while the US still used FP16).
• They built stable mixture-of-experts models others couldn’t.
• They did it all with cheaper H800 GPUs.

Silicon Valley’s edge disappeared overnight… 

The cost comparison is staggering:

• DeepSeek: $5.6M total
• OpenAI: $5B per year
• Google: $50B on infrastructure
• Microsoft: $13B OpenAI investment

They proved billions aren’t necessary… 

Their breakthroughs amazed experts with better stability, smarter data use, and innovative training designs.

They achieved in 60 days what others took 6 months to accomplish.

Even Sam Altman couldn’t ignore it… 

The implications are huge:

• Developers are switching to DeepSeek
• The US chip ban made China more efficient
• Open-source is overtaking closed systems
• AI costs are dropping by 30x

But here’s the real game-changer: 

DeepSeek’s plan is smart.

They made everything open-source, priced APIs at 10¢ per million tokens, and let developers create freely.

This bold move challenged the US AI monopoly, all based on one key idea… 

They proved 3 industry myths wrong:

• You don’t need top chips to compete
• Billions in funding can hold you back
• Constraints drive innovation

The numbers don’t lie…

• Trained on 14.8 trillion tokens
• Used 2,048 H800 GPUs (vs 30,000+ for GPT-4)
• Completed training in 60 days
• Matched or beat benchmark scores

Even Eric Schmidt said, “China has caught up in a way that is remarkable.”

Time will tell if US companies can adapt... 

Thanks for reading! A few words about me:

I dropped out of uni at 18 and built an X ghostwriting business, generating $1.5M+ for clients and 500M+ impressions in just 1.5 years.

Make sure to follow me @yourgwriter for more brain-expanding threads.

Have a blessed day! 