Reference News Network, January 16 report: According to the "Nikkei Economic News," on January 15, in January 2025, the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek made its debut. In the past year, the ranks of Chinese AI companies have continued to grow, and they are no longer following the United States but are finding their own optimal path, carving out their own space.
The report states whether the high-tech export control measures of the United States have already become meaningless? The emergence of DeepSeek has caused a huge impact on the market. On January 27, 2025, DeepSeek surpassed ChatGPT and topped the free download ranking list of the Apple App Store. A paper points out that DeepSeek has achieved high-level reasoning performance under limited computing resources and low cost.
DeepSeek is highly praised for its mathematical reasoning capabilities and high cost-effectiveness. Other Chinese large models that have attracted attention include Kimi developed by Beijing Moonshot Technology Co., Ltd. and MiniMax developed by Shanghai Xiyu Technology.
According to Xinhua News Agency's report in July 2025, China had released 1,509 large models at that time, ranking first globally. Among China's AI large models, Alibaba Group's "Qwen" has seen a sharp rise in popularity over the past year.
Chinese media reported based on data from the American AI development platform Hugging Face that as of January 2026, the download count of the Qwen series model had exceeded 700 million times, becoming the most downloaded open-source AI large model on the platform.
The report states that the approach of Chinese AI has clearly differed from that of its American counterparts. American AI relies on the most advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) and substantial investments, while China strives to maintain a competitive advantage through efficiency and lightweight solutions; American companies focus on enhancing computing and reasoning capabilities, while China focuses on promoting the social application of AI.
According to a report, a senior stock fund manager based in Hong Kong said, "Although it is not yet clear whether China's AI large models can surpass those of the United States, it is worth noting that they are creating unique investment opportunities by leveraging their deployment capabilities under various constraints."
In fact, Chinese AI startups have already moved beyond the technology verification stage and are entering the industrialization and capital recovery phase. From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, multiple AI companies covering various fields from computing resources to applications have successively listed in Hong Kong. (Translated by Liu Lin)
On May 4, 2025, people experienced DeepSeek's artificial intelligence large model at the AI Black Tech Market in the Wensan Digital Life District of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. (Xinhua News Agency photo)
Original: toutiao.com/article/7595789005199901193/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author himself.