Alibaba And DeepSeek Intensify AI Showdown, Challenge OpenAI Market Dominance

After nearly three weeks of suspension, Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has reopened access to its core programming interface, resuming a service key to broader adoption of an AI model.

Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek suspended top-ups in early February due to capacity constraints.

The 20-month-old Chinese startup’s emergence in January cost Nvidia Corp NVDA $600 billion in market cap in a single day as it said its chatbot could rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which it developed at a fraction of the cost of its rivals.

Also Read: Zoom Eyes AI-Powered Growth, Analyst Highlights Innovation Momentum, Revenue Challenges

On Wednesday, DeepSeek launched discounted off-peak pricing for developers, Reuters reports. The Chinese AI startup announced up to 75% discount between 1630 GMT and 0030 GMT.

Chinese tech companies like Alibaba Group Holding’ BABA and its rivals were already engaged in a price war to win more market share. DeepSeek’s move coincided with Alibaba’s launch of a preview of its latest model, QwQ-Max.

On Wednesday, Alibaba told Reuters its video- and image-generating artificial intelligence model Wan 2.1 is now publicly available or open source.

The models are available globally on Alibaba Cloud’s ModelScope and HuggingFace platforms for academic, research, and commercial.

TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd also said it’s testing a self-developed deep reasoning model.

Alibaba has committed to a $53 billion investment over three years to bolster its cloud computing and AI infrastructure.

The proposed investment tops the company’s total spending on AI infrastructure over the past decade and equates to around half the initial $100 billion investment earmarked for the United States’ Stargate Project to boost AI infrastructure.

Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming met Chongqing party secretary and Politburo member Yuan Jiajun on Tuesday to discuss potential AI collaborations, SCMP reports.

Price Action: BABA stock is up 4.94% at $140.68 premarket at the last check Wednesday.

Also Read:

• Intel Deploys ASML’s Advanced EUV Machines, Aims to Challenge Taiwan Semiconductor’s Lead

Image via Shutterstock