Work

On DeepSeek and Export Controls

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: DeepSeek does not "do for $6M5 what cost US AI companies billions". I can only speak for Anthropic, but Claude 3.5 Sonnet is a mid-sized model that cost a few $10M's to train (I won't give an exact number). Also, 3.5 Sonnet was not trained in any way that involved a larger or more expensive model (contrary to some rumors). Sonnet's training was conducted 9-12 months ago, and DeepSeek's model was trained in November/December, while Sonnet remains notably ahead in many internal and external evals. Thus, I think a fair statement is "DeepSeek produced a model close to the performance of US models 7-10 months older, for a good deal less cost (but not anywhere near the ratios people have suggested)".
Author: Dario Amodei
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4408666876
FWCI: 3.417
Cites:
Cited by: 8
Related to: 10