Earlier this week, OpenAI reignited talk about DeepSeek after releasing a pair of AI models.
These were the first free and open versions – meaning they can be downloaded and modified – released by the American AI giant in five years, well before ChatGPT ushered in the consumer AI era.
“You can draw a straight line from DeepSeek to what OpenAI announced this week,” said d-Matrix’s Sheth.
“DeepSeek proved that smaller, more efficient models could still deliver impressive performance—and that changed the industry’s mindset,” Sheth told the BBC. “What we’re seeing now is the next wave of that thinking: a shift toward right-sized models that are faster, cheaper, and ready to deploy at scale.”
But to others, for the major American players in AI, the old approach appears to be alive and well.
Just days after releasing the free models, OpenAI unveiled GPT-5. In the run-up, the company said, external it significantly ramped up its computing capacity and AI infrastructure.
A slew of announcements about new data centre clusters needed for AI has come as American tech companies have been competing for top-tier AI talent.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has ploughed billions of dollars to fulfil his AI ambitions, and tried to lure staff from rivals with $100m pay packages.
The fortunes of the tech giants seemed more tethered than ever to their commitment to AI spending, as evidenced by the series of blowout results revealed this past tech earnings season.
Meanwhile, shares of Nvidia, which plunged just after DeepSeek’s arrival, have rebounded – touching new highs that have made it the world’s most valuable company in history.
“The initial narrative has proven a bit of a red herring,” said Mill Pond Research’s Caen.
We are back to a future in which AI will ostensibly depend on more data centres, more chips, and more power.
In other words, DeepSeek’s shake-up of the status quo hasn’t lasted.
And what about DeepSeek itself?
“DeepSeek now faces challenges sustaining its momentum,” said Marina Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney.
That’s due in part to operational setbacks but also to intense competition from companies in the US and China, she said.
Zhang notes that the company’s next product, DeepSeek-R2, has reportedly been delayed. One reason? A shortage of high-end chips.