Why DeepSeek could mark a turning point for Silicon Valley on AI
CNN
Silicon Valley is coming to grips this week with the realization that creating an advanced artificial intelligence model may no longer be as specialized a task as was once believed.
Silicon Valley is coming to grips this week with the realization that creating an advanced artificial intelligence model may no longer be as specialized a task as was once believed. The wakeup call came in the form of DeepSeek, a year-old Chinese start-up whose free, open-source AI model, R1, is more or less on par with advanced models from American tech giants — and it was built for a fraction of the cost, apparently with less advanced chips and it demands far less data center power to run. Until now, the widely accepted wisdom in the US tech world was that American tech giants could stay ahead by spending billions of dollars, amassing advanced chips and building out huge data centers (despite the environmental cost). Essentially, because they’re among the richest companies in the world, they believed they could throw more resources at the problem than anyone else and come out on top. Now, all of that has been called into question. And tech giants are facing tough questions from Wall Street. The name of the AI game may no longer be winning with the most expensive, ever-more powerful models. “The paradigm is shifting,” said Zack Kass, an AI consultant and former OpenAI go-to-market lead.
US stocks rallied Friday as investors tried to stage a rebound to finish a rocky week, though all three major indexes were still on track to close the week in the red.
Gold prices reached $3,000 an ounce for the first time in history Friday, boosted by demand for safe-haven assets as investors fret about President Donald Trump’s tariffs and geopolitics.
The Trump bump in consumer sentiment is now a Trump slump.
On-again, off-again tariffs, mass government layoffs, funding cuts and immigration crackdowns have seriously spooked Wall Street, which is emphatically rejecting President Donald Trump’s chaotic economic agenda.
For craft brewers, an industry largely consisting of small businesses and where the product is made in steel plus packaged in aluminum, the newly applied tariffs are having a direct strike on their bottom lines.
President Donald Trump has said that automakers can avoid his tariffs by simply moving production to American plants. But it’s not that easy. Not by a long shot.
China has sharply criticized a proposal to sell ports in the Panama Canal to American asset management giant BlackRock, attacking the deal as “spineless groveling” and a “betrayal” of the Chinese people.
Bill Pulte, who was confirmed by the US Senate on Thursday to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency for the Trump administration, said he’s in no rush to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage behemoths that power more than half of America’s mortgages.
Tesla, the electric car company run by Elon Musk, said this week that retaliatory tariffs against US manufacturers could harm its operations and that the US should carefully consider its trade policies, a break from Musk’s ally President Donald Trump.
US stocks slid Thursday and the S&P 500 entered into correction territory, down 10% from its record high in February, as President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on the European Union.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to impose a massive tariff on European alcohol in response to the European Union’s retaliation against his steel and aluminum tariffs – a tit-for-tat escalation of a trade war that could easily get out of hand.
The Producer Price Index, a wholesale inflation gauge that is being closely watched for tariff-related impacts, showed that price hikes slowed substantially in February.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told lawmakers in a Congressional hearing last January that it didn’t make sense for his platforms to verify how old their users are in order to serve them age-appropriate experiences. Instead, that responsibility should lie with app stores, he said.