DeepSeek’s emergence has also changed perceptions among economists and investors towards China’s capacity for innovation, they added, vindicating a long-term push by the country to build up its home-grown talent and technologies.
“We had grown so used to the pervasive narrative that China can only play catch up and the US’ lead is nearly insurmountable, until DeepSeek emerged,” said Ye Kejiang, a doctoral researcher and head of the cloud computing programme at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology. “Its success has demonstrated that Chinese firms can conjure breakthroughs amid adversity. It’s a feat science and tech workers like me can relate to.”
Ye, whose institute is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the firm’s achievement has provided a powerful argument for the feasibility of staking out a claim in the complex tech sector, even without access to the most advanced components.
“DeepSeek shows … China is not behind the West in some aspects of the tech race, like software design,” he said. “China has no shortage of smart, capable talent, whose ingenuity can be on a par with those in the West and even outsmart them.”
