DeepSeek’s progress shows rise of China’s AI companies, says Chinese official

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BEIJING (Reuters) – The progress of DeepSeek reflects the rise of Chinese companies in artificial intelligence (AI), a spokesperson for China’s parliament told reporters on Tuesday.

Lou Qinjian, responding to a question on China’s progress in AI, said what DeepSeek’s young team had achieved was “commendable”.

“DeepSeek adheres to an open-source approach and promotes the widespread application of AI technology globally which contributes Chinese wisdom to the world,” he said.

“Through the rise of companies like DeepSeek, we can see the innovation and inclusiveness of China’s technological development.”

AI startup DeepSeek has been lauded in China since it recently rattled the global tech sector by rolling out AI models that cost a fraction of those being developed by U.S. rivals such as OpenAI.

While some governments such as South Korea and Italy have removed DeepSeek’s chatbot from national app stores, citing privacy concerns, it has been firmly embraced in China with local governments to tech firms integrating it into their systems.

The Hangzhou-based firm is accelerating the launch of the successor to January’s R1 model, Reuters reported last month.

(Reporting by Liz Lee and Yukun Zhang; writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Sonali Paul and Kim Coghill)