摘要：近日，一款名为“DeepSeek R1”的高效且强大的中国人工智能模型在全球科技行业掀起轩然大波，导致目前如日中天的美国人工智能公司股票大幅下挫和华尔街的担忧。

DeepSeek冲击引发英伟达股价大幅下挫

近日，一款名为“DeepSeek R1”的高效且强大的中国人工智能模型在全球科技行业掀起轩然大波，导致目前如日中天的美国人工智能公司股票大幅下挫和华尔街的担忧。

这款新的人工智能模型由中国渊亭科技公司（DeepSeek）开发，这是一家仅成立一年的初创公司，却不知以何种方式实现了一项突破，著名科技投资者马克・安德森称之为“人工智能领域的斯普特尼克时刻”：R1几乎能与那些名气大得多的竞争对手包括开放人工智能（OpenAI）的生成式预训练变换器(GPT–4)，元宇宙的小羊驼（Llama）以及谷歌的双子星（Gemini）相媲美，，但其成本却只是它们的一小部分。

该公司表示，其为基础人工智能模型投入的资金仅560万美元，相比之下，美国公司在人工智能技术上的投入即使没有数十亿美元，也有几亿美元。考虑到美国多年来以国家安全为由，限制向中国供应高性能人工智能芯片，这一情况就更令人震惊。这意味着DeepSeek理应是在相对性能较弱的人工智能芯片上实现了其低成本模型。

低调的梁文峰应邀参加与总理的座谈

该公司由中国对冲基金经理梁文峰于2023年末创立，是近年来涌现出的众多初创公司之一。这些公司寻求大量投资，以搭乘这股将科技行业推向新高度的人工智能大潮。

梁文峰已成为中国的人工智能技术及新研究投资的，他的对冲基金“高鹄资本”（High-Flyer）专注于人工智能开发。

与其他人工智能初创公司一样，渊亭科技在过去一年发布了多款颇具竞争力的人工智能模型，引起了一些行业关注。据《华尔街日报》报道，其V3模型提高了公司的知名度。

其去年年底突然亮相的R1模型在上周正式推出，本周该公司向《华尔街日报》透露其惊人的低成本运营情况后，吸引了大量关注。而且R1是开源的，这意味着其他公司可以对该模型进行测试，并在此基础上进行改进。

DeepSeek应用程序在应用商店排行榜上飙升，周一超过了ChatGPT，下载量已接近200万次。

人工智能是一项能耗巨大且成本高昂的技术，以至于美国最具实力的科技巨头们纷纷收购核电公司，只为给其人工智能模型提供所需电力。

上周，元宇宙表示今年将在人工智能开发上投入650亿美元以上。开放人工智能首席执行官山姆・奥特曼去年曾称，人工智能行业需要数万亿美元的投资，用以支持开发高需求芯片，这些芯片是为运行复杂模型的高耗能数据中心提供动力所必需的。

因此，DeepSeek以如此低的成本，且在性能较弱的芯片上实现与美国最强大的人工智能模型相近的能力，这一概念代表着行业对人工智能所需投资额认知的巨大转变。这项技术有许多怀疑者和反对者，但其倡导者却展望了一个光明的未来：他们认为，人工智能将推动全球经济进入一个新时代，提高工作效率，并在多个行业开拓新的能力，为新的研发铺平道路。

马克・安德森是特朗普的支持者，也是硅谷风险投资公司安德森・霍洛维茨（Andreessen Horowitz）的联合创始人。他在X平台上发文称，渊亭科技的成果“是我见过的最惊人、最令人印象深刻的突破之一”。

如果这种可能改变世界的力量能够以大幅降低的成本实现，那么它将给世界带来新的机遇——同时也伴随着威胁。

美国曾认为，通过制裁手段，就能在这项其认定有助于增强国家安全的关键技术领域占据主导地位。就在卸任前一周，前总统乔・拜登还进一步强化了对人工智能计算机芯片的出口限制，以防止中国等竞争对手获取这项先进技术。

但渊亭科技让这种想法受到质疑，也冲击了美国科技产业不可战胜的光环。美国或许通过芯片出口限制为自己争取了时间，但即便采取了这些措施，其在人工智能领域的领先优势还是大幅缩水。

渊亭科技的例子或许表明，切断对某项关键技术的获取途径，并不一定意味着美国就能胜出。这对奉行孤立主义“美国优先”政策的唐纳德・特朗普总统来说，是个重要的警示。

这一发展态势令华尔街感到恐慌。周一早盘，美国股市面临大幅抛售。英伟达作为人工智能芯片的主要供应商，其股价在过去两年里每年都实现了翻倍增长，但在盘前交易中下跌了12%。元宇宙和谷歌母公司字母表的股价也大幅下跌，美满电子（Marvell）、博通、帕兰提尔（Palantir）、甲骨文等众多科技巨头亦是如此。

业界目前采信了该公司所说的低成本这一说法。没人真正对此提出质疑，但市场的恐慌却基于这么一家相对籍籍无名的公司所言是否真实。值得注意的是，该公司并未透露训练模型的成本，可能遗漏了潜在高昂的研发费用，但它可能真的没有像美国公司那样花数十亿美元。

现在就否定美国在科技领域的创新能力和领先地位，还为时尚早。一项成就，尽管令人惊叹，或许并不足以抗衡美国在人工智能领域多年来积累的领先优势。而且，大量客户转向一家中国初创公司的可能性也不大。

特鲁斯分析师基思・勒纳表示：“渊亭科技模型的推出，让投资者开始质疑美国公司的领先地位，以及投入的资金是否过多，还有这些投入能否带来利润，或者是否属于支出过度。归根结底，我们认为，人工智能领域在数据等方面所需的投入仍将十分巨大，而美国公司仍将保持领先地位。”

尽管在成本节约方面的成就是可观的，但R1模型只是ChatGPT的竞争对手，是一款面向消费者的大型语言模型。它尚未证明自己能够具备某些极其宏大的、目前仍需巨额基础设施投资的行业所需的人工智能能力。

人工智能市场研究公司睿富莱希维蒂（Reflexivity）总裁朱塞佩・塞特称：“得益于其丰富的人才储备和雄厚的资金基础，美国仍是最有望率先诞生自我进化型人工智能的‘主场’。”

A surprisingly efficient and powerful Chinese AI model has taken the technology industry by storm. It’s called DeepSeek R1, and it’s rattling nerves on Wall Street.

The new AI model was developed by DeepSeek, a startup that was born just a year ago and has somehow managed a breakthrough that famed tech investor Marc Andreessen has called “AI’s Sputnik moment”: R1 can nearly match the capabilities of its far more famous rivals, including OpenAI’s GPT-4, Meta’s Llama and Google’s Gemini — but at a fraction of the cost.

The company said it had spent just $5.6 million powering its base AI model, compared with the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars US companies spend on their AI technologies. That’s even more shocking when considering that the United States has worked for years to restrict the supply of high-power AI chips to China, citing national security concerns. That means DeepSeek was supposedly able to achieve its low-cost model on relatively under-powered AI chips.

What is DeepSeek?

The company, founded in late 2023 by Chinese hedge fund manager Liang Wenfeng, is one of scores of startups that have popped up in recent years seeking big investment to ride the massive AI wave that has taken the tech industry to new heights.

Liang has become the Sam Altman of China — an evangelist for AI technology and investment in new research. His hedge fund, High-Flyer, focuses on AI development.

Like other AI startups, including Anthropic and Perplexity, DeepSeek released various competitive AI models over the past year that have captured some industry attention. Its V3 model raised some awareness about the company, although its content restrictions around sensitive topics about the Chinese government and its leadership sparked doubts about its viability as an industry competitor, the Wall Street Journal reported.

But R1, which came out of nowhere when it was revealed late last year, launched last week and gained significant attention this week when the company revealed to the Journal its shockingly low cost of operation. And it is open-source, which means other companies can test and build upon the model to improve it.

The DeepSeek app has surged on the app store charts, surpassing ChatGPT Monday, and it has been downloaded nearly 2 million times.

Why is DeepSeek such a big deal?

AI is a power-hungry and cost-intensive technology — so much so that America’s most powerful tech leaders are buying up nuclear power companies to provide the necessary electricity for their AI models.

Meta last week said it would spend upward of $65 billion this year on AI development. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, last year said the AI industry would need trillions of dollars in investment to support the development of high-in-demand chips needed to power the electricity-hungry data centers that run the sector’s complex models.

So the notion that similar capabilities as America’s most powerful AI models can be achieved for such a small fraction of the cost — and on less capable chips — represents a sea change in the industry’s understanding of how much investment is needed in AI. The technology has many skeptics and opponents, but its advocates promise a bright future: AI will advance the global economy into a new era, they argue, making work more efficient and opening up new capabilities across multiple industries that will pave the way for new research and developments.

Andreessen, a Trump supporter and co-founder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, called DeepSeek “one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen,” in a post on X.

If that potentially world-changing power can be achieved at a significantly reduced cost, it opens up new possibilities — and threats — to the planet.

What does this mean for America?

The United States thought it could sanction its way to dominance in a key technology it believes will help bolster its national security. Just a week before leaving office, former President Joe Biden doubled down on export restrictions on AI computer chips to prevent rivals like China from accessing the advanced technology.

But DeepSeek has called into question that notion, and threatened the aura of invincibility surrounding America’s technology industry. America may have bought itself time with restrictions on chip exports, but its AI lead just shrank dramatically despite those actions.

DeepSeek may show that turning off access to a key technology doesn’t necessarily mean the United States will win. That’s an important message to President Donald Trump as he pursues his isolationist “America First” policy.

Wall Street was alarmed by the development. US stocks were set for a steep selloff Monday morning. Nvidia (NVDA), the leading supplier of AI chips, whose stock more than doubled in each of the past two years, fell 12% in premarket trading. Meta (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL), Google’s parent company, were also down sharply, as were Marvell, Broadcom, Palantir, Oracle and many other tech giants.

Are we really sure this is a big deal?

The industry is taking the company at its word that the cost was so low. No one is really disputing it, but the market freak-out hinges on the truthfulness of a single and relatively unknown company. The company notably didn’t say how much it cost to train its model, leaving out potentially expensive research and development costs. (Still, it probably didn’t spend billions of dollars.)

It’s also far too early to count out American tech innovation and leadership. One achievement, albeit a gobsmacking one, may not be enough to counter years of progress in American AI leadership. And a massive customer shift to a Chinese startup is unlikely.

“The DeepSeek model rollout is leading investors to question the lead that US companies have and how much is being spent and whether that spending will lead to profits (or overspending),” said Keith Lerner, analyst at Truist. “Ultimately, our view, is the required spend for data and such in AI will be significant, and US companies remain leaders.”

Although the cost-saving achievement may be significant, the R1 model is a ChatGPT competitor — a consumer-focused large-language model. It hasn’t yet proven it can handle some of the massively ambitious AI capabilities for industries that — for now — still require tremendous infrastructure investments.

“Thanks to its rich talent and capital base, the US remains the most promising ‘home turf’ from which we expect to see the emergence of the first self-improving AI,” said Giuseppe Sette, president of AI market research firm Reflexivity.

来源：读行品世事