OpenAI's Sam Altman breaks silence on DeepSeek, the Chinese startup that shook Silicon Valley

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has broken his silence on the Chinese startup DeepSeek that sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley when it released its AI model R1.

Updated on: Jan 30, 2025, 12:23:17 IST

By Sanya Jain

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has broken his silence on the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek that sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley last week when it released its open-source AI model, DeepSeek R1. Altman, whose company OpenAI ignited the artificial intelligence revolution with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, acknowledged that R1 is an “impressive model” in an X post shared this morning.

FILE PHOTO: Sam Altman, CEO of Microsoft-backed OpenAI and ChatGPT creator takes part in a talk at Tel Aviv University in Tel Aviv, Israel June 5, 2023. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo (REUTERS)

Sam Altman on DeepSeek

“DeepSeek's R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price,” the CEO of OpenAI wrote, adding that it was invigorating to have a competitor. He also expressed confidence in his AI startup’s ability to deliver better models.

“We will obviously deliver much better models and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor!” Altman said. He hinted that OpenAI would reshuffle its planned releases to keep up with market demands, but ultimately keep its focus on its research roadmap to AGI or artificial general intelligence, a type of artificial intelligence that matches or surpasses human cognitive capabilities.

“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,” said the CEO of OpenAI, suggesting that increased compute power would be critical in OpenAI maintaining its edge in the AI race.

Altman concluded his post by saying that the world will need a lot of AI and people are going to be “amazed” by the next generation of AI models.

“Look forward to bringing you all AGI and beyond,” he said, reiterating OpenAI’s founding mission of creating AGI.

It was just a few days ago that Altman had said that his startup had not yet built AGI - AI systems that are generally smarter than humans. AGI is a theoretical concept that is still being researched and developed. However, in a blog post on January 6, Altman had said that OpenAI knows how to build AGI and would deploy it in 2025.

(Also read: Superintelligence in sight, but OpenAI has not built AGI yet, says Sam Altman)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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