‘Made in China’: Pride, pleasant surprise from Chinese netizens as DeepSeek jolts global AI scene
“People are proud that genuine innovation is happening in China … and by a founder who’s never received an overseas education,” says an analyst.
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BEIJING/SINGAPORE: Pride and pleasant surprise over its homegrown prowess - Chinese netizens are making their thoughts known over DeepSeek as the Chinese tech startup makes global waves over its latest artificial intelligence (AI) models.
Their emergence has sent shockwaves through Wall Street and Silicon Valley after appearing to match or even exceed the performance of US AI rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT for a fraction of the investment.
The developments have also catapulted to fame Liang Wenfeng, the 40-year-old hedge fund manager behind DeepSeek that is now roiling tech markets.
While DeepSeek’s advances have dominated Western headlines, coverage by Chinese state media has been relatively tame as Chinese New Year stories remain front and centre.
The likes of China Daily and Xinhua have largely just carried straightforward reports on the main developments - such as how DeepSeek has displaced ChatGPT to top the US Apple App Store, as well as the market sell-off that saw AI chip maker Nvidia among the hardest hit.
Much of the chatter has instead been happening on the Chinese web.
On microblogging site Weibo, DeepSeek was among the top trending topics on Tuesday (Jan 28). Meanwhile, the phrase “what is DeepSeek” trended sixth on social media platform Xiaohongshu, with 46 million views as of Tuesday afternoon.
Many people expressed pride at DeepSeek’s achievements, pointing out how the firm is homegrown.
“This is made in China! Moreover, it's open-source, super low-priced, and doesn't require a VPN (virtual private network)! Chinese technology has stood up this time!” one Xiaohongshu user remarked.
Another, who claims to be in the environmental engineering field, said: “(DeepSeek’s) AI's feedback is indeed fair, and domestic large models are impressive."
Chinese netizens also expressed pleasant surprise at DeepSeek’s capabilities.
Xiaohongshu user Tata shared how she issued the same command to DeepSeek and two other AI chatbots, Doubao and ChatGPT: "Help me write a modern poem that describes the ambience of me walking on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau."
She wrote that while Doubao and ChatGPT produced lines “reminiscent of high school essays”, DeepSeek's output was poetic and referenced local culture - singling out a line: “In the yak's belly, the entire plateau's twilight brews.”
“This is truly the next level of AI … (DeepSeek’s) capabilities are more than sufficient to handle ordinary people's joys and sorrows. The era of falling in love with robots is truly approaching,” she remarked.
Andy Chen Xinran, an independent China consultant based in Beijing, told CNA that many Chinese are only learning about DeepSeek’s existence in recent days.
“I think in the past 48 hours, I've seen a lot of people coming to realise that this thing exists … that they have this tool they can use,” he added.
“People are proud that genuine innovation is happening in China, in Hangzhou, and by a founder who’s never received an overseas education,” said Chen, noting that most of the developers in Liang’s team are not overseas educated as well.
“That gives people a lot of confidence.”
LATEST ADVANCES
Analysts told CNA DeepSeek’s latest advances reflect the innovation progress made in China’s private sector.
Private companies are a major growth driver in China, responsible for 80 per cent of urban jobs and serving as the long-time backbone of the country’s US$18 trillion economy.
“This breakthrough was achieved not by government-backed research institutes and large state-owned enterprises, but by a hedge fund with no government subsidies. It is a clear example of private sector efficiency,” Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist of Pinpoint Asset Management, told CNA.
“The market now realises that innovation in China's private sector is competitive even on a global scale,” he added.
DeepSeek's success has already been noticed in China's top political circles, as Beijing pursues high-tech innovation and self-reliance in the face of American export controls and tariff threats from newly minted US President Donald Trump.
On Jan 20, the day DeepSeek released a new product to the public, company founder Liang attended a closed-door symposium hosted by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, according to Xinhua.
He was among a select group of experts spanning multiple industries that offered Li their opinions and suggestions for a draft government work report.
During the meeting, Li called for a focus on “new growth drivers” through scientific and technological innovation, and intensified efforts to “secure and improve people’s livelihoods”, according to Xinhua.
DeepSeek has become a dark horse in the global AI industry, former Global Times top editor Hu Xijin wrote in a Weibo post on Monday evening.
“What breakthroughs will it make and what will it bring? All of this is probably just beginning,” he wrote.
SEEKING DEEPER USES FOR DEEPSEEK
Chinese netizens have also taken to social media to share their experiences using DeepSeek.
One user on Xiaohongshu described it as sounding human and not “machine-like”.
Another user described her emotional experience when using DeepSeek to brainstorm a story.
In a post that garnered 19,000 likes, the user, Cat and Mouse, shared how she had come up with a story based on her grandmother, but struggled to pen it down due to her limited writing skills. She then asked DeepSeek to do so by feeding it the data.
"I was blown away by the story it wrote, not so much by how well it was written, but by the fact that even a story like that would have taken me a long, long time to write (and not nearly as well as it did), and it only took (DeepSeek) 5 seconds,” the user wrote.
Another user, Bella Ren, described being “extremely surprised” by the quality of the copy provided by DeepSeek, contrasting it with her previous attempts using ChatGPT.
She noted that while the latter offered “precise accuracy” in handling entrepreneurial insights, its output often had a "distinctly human-machine flavour”.
“I can’t help but admire DeepSeek’s proficiency in writing copy,” said Bella Ren, adding that she intends to turn to DeepSeek as her go-to AI tool.
Some user feedback has been more tempered.
A Weibo user underscored DeepSeek’s limitations in handling complex creative tasks that require an understanding of context, nuance, and human emotions. This is a challenge faced by other AI models as well.
“Using DeepSeek to write novels presents significant challenges. It still struggles to imagine human behavioural patterns, resulting in clichéd outlines,” the user wrote.
Even so, observers note that DeepSeek's competitive edge isn’t borne out of such uses as writing novels.
“It’s the developers who are using the underlying technology to develop other applications based on this model - from education, commerce, everything you can develop,” said Chen, the Beijing-based independent consultant.
“I think the most competitive edge DeepSeek has against other AI platforms is that it's relatively cheaper to use. It uses fewer chips to produce its model than other big companies.”
