 "DeepSeek's AI model impresses, but OpenAI's Sam Altman promises better")
OpenAI chief Sam Altman has weighed in on the growing chatter surrounding Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, after it caused a stir in Silicon Valley last week with its release of the open-source AI model, DeepSeek R1. Known for launching the AI revolution with ChatGPT in November 2022, Altman praised DeepSeek’s new offering, calling R1 an “impressive model”. Also read: What is DeepSeek: China's open-source AI research lab which rivals OpenAI
“DeepSeek’s R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price,” Altman wrote in a post on X this morning. He went on to express excitement over the emergence of new competition in the AI space.
“It’s invigorating to have a new competitor!” Altman said. While acknowledging DeepSeek's achievement, he reassured the AI community that OpenAI remains confident in its ability to deliver even better models.
“We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor!” he added, hinting at OpenAI’s plans to accelerate its releases in response to market competition, while maintaining focus on its long-term goal: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
Altman further emphasised that while OpenAI may tweak its release schedule, the company’s focus will remain on its research roadmap. “We will pull up some releases. But mostly we are excited to continue to execute on our research roadmap and believe more compute is more important now than ever before to succeed at our mission,” he said. He also suggested that investing in more computing power will be crucial for OpenAI to maintain its edge in the AI race.
In closing, Altman expressed his excitement about the future of artificial intelligence. “The world will need a lot of AI, and people are going to be amazed by the next generation of AI models,” he wrote, reaffirming OpenAI’s commitment to developing AGI, a type of artificial intelligence that could potentially surpass human cognitive abilities.
Altman’s comments come just days after he clarified that OpenAI had not yet built AGI, a concept that remains theoretical. However, in a blog post on January 6, Altman shared OpenAI’s confidence that they know how to build AGI and plan to deploy it in 2025.