UAE to launch AI models, drawing inspiration from DeepSeek's entry
3 Min Read
"...I think [DeepSeek gives] a serious sense of encouragement that you can punch way above your weight in this game, because the game is still starting," says Faisal al Bannai, UAE presidential advisor on advanced technologies.
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The page for the smartphone app DeepSeek is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, on Tuesday, January 28, 2025. (AP)
The United Arab Emirates is planning to launch its own artificial intelligence models, drawing inspiration from the Chinese DeepSeek, as per a senior official to AFP, adding that DeepSeek disrupting the global market is "fantastic news."
Faisal al Bannai, the man behind the UAE's Large Language Model Falcon, launched in 2023, said that DeepSeek's emergence as a strong player in the market showed the AI race is not limited to the United States only, citing how the low-cost and high performance of DeepSeek crashed the US stock market.
"It's fantastic news. Because it proves one thing: this game is at its beginning," Bannai said, adding, "What happened with DeepSeek was another proof that small teams, agile teams, agile countries, can move fast and can make an impact."
DeepSeek's disruptive power
DeepSeek, an AI chatbot app, was first released to the public on January 20, and it quickly overtook its US rival chatGPT becoming the top-rated app on the Apple App Store in the United States, thanks to its performance and efficiency.
DeepSeek's manufacturing cost was approximated at around $5.58 million, meanwhile, it took 100 million dollars to develop chatGPT 4, almost 20 times the cost of DeepSeek, and this is thanks to the Chinese AI's innovative training methods and open source technology according to Ali Sabir, an AI researcher.
DeepSeek's performance was on par with ChatGPT's while costing only a fraction of what OpenAI spent on its app, which caused ripples in the United States stock market: Nvidia stocks dropped 10%, Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 3.4%, and S&P 500 futures dropped 2%.
OpenAI started seeking to raise 40 billion dollars, due to DeepSeek's fierce competition, in a funding round that would boost its valuation with the Japanese Softbank being OpenAI's largest backer with a stake worth 15-25 billion dollars.
Not only that but OpenAI struck a partnership deal with the South Korean corporation, Kakao, to integrate chatGPT into the app in a move to form a global alliance led by the American company. "We're excited to bring advanced AI to Kakao's millions of users and work together to integrate our technology into services that transform how Kakao's users communicate and connect," Altman commented.
