Two companies have recently drawn a lot of interest in the quickly changing field of artificial intelligence (AI): OpenAI, a well-known American AI research centre, and DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup.
Although both have created sophisticated large language models (LLMs), their methods, prices, and ideologies are different.
Establishment and Purpose
Liang Wenfeng, a co-founder of the hedge firm High-Flyer, started DeepSeek in 2023.
High-Flyer first concentrated on AI and algorithm-based trading before expanding toward more general AI research, which resulted in the development of DeepSeek.
To make cutting-edge AI more widely available, the company strongly
emphasises open-source development.
Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other individuals formed OpenAI in 2015 as a
non-profit organization to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)
serves the interests of all people. To secure funding, OpenAI gradually
switched to a capped-profit business model, collaborating with firms such as
Microsoft to further its research.
Model Creation and Expenses
Efficiency and cost-effectiveness were key considerations in the development of
DeepSeek's flagship model, DeepSeek-R1. Using cutting-edge training techniques
and refined algorithms, the company claimed that less than $6 million in
computational resources were needed to train DeepSeek-R1, achieving great
performance without incurring significant costs.
OpenAI's models, such GPT-4, on the other hand, have been linked to noticeably
greater development expenses. Although the numbers are confidential, estimates
indicate that the cost of training GPT-4 was in the hundreds of millions of
dollars, which is indicative of the large amount of data and computer power
needed.
Capabilities and Performance
DeepSeek-R1 has proven to perform well in certain areas, especially coding and
mathematical reasoning problems. According to benchmark testing, DeepSeek-R1
performs somewhat better than OpenAI's models in answering mathematical
problems; on the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) 2024
benchmark, it achieved an accuracy of 79.8% as opposed to OpenAI's 79.2%.
Models from OpenAI, like GPT-4, are well known for their adaptability and
general-purpose skills. They perform exceptionally well in a variety of tasks,
including as creative writing, translation, and natural language comprehension.
For example, OpenAI's models outperformed DeepSeek-R1 in the Massive Multitask
Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmark, demonstrating a wider knowledge base
and competence in a variety of disciplines.
DeepSeek vs OpenAI Comparison Table
Feature |
DeepSeek |
OpenAI |
Founded |
2023 by Liang Wenfeng |
2015 by Elon Musk, Sam
Altman, et al. |
Mission |
Open-source AI for accessibility |
Ensure AGI benefits all of humanity |
Key Model |
DeepSeek-R1 |
GPT-4 |
Development Cost |
<$6 million |
Hundreds of millions of dollars |
Approach |
Fully open-source |
Proprietary |
Performance (Math) |
79.8% on AIME benchmark |
79.2% on AIME benchmark |
Performance (General) |
Specialized (math, coding) |
Versatile, excels in
multiple domains |
Speed |
Record-breaking inference speeds |
High-speed but resource-intensive |
Use Cases |
Problem-solving, coding,
mathematical tasks |
Creative writing,
translation, general NLP |
Access |
Free and open to everyone |
Paid APIs and commercial
partnerships |
Market Impact |
Disrupted AI norms with
cost-effective models |
Industry leader with
partnerships (Microsoft) |
Ethics/Safety |
Promotes transparency, shared
responsibility |
Focused on controlled, safe AI
deployment |
Target Audience |
Developers, startups,
researchers |
Enterprises, large-scale
businesses |
Notable Collaboration |
Open-source community |
Microsoft, Azure |
Innovation |
Cost-effective AI at scale |
Pioneering large-scale
proprietary models |