Russian TV falls for fake report on DeepSeek’s ‘Soviet code’

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MOSCOW (Reuters) – A spoof Russian news report that China’s DeepSeek AI app was based on a secret Soviet code has found its way onto state TV, reflecting nostalgia in Russian society for a lost age of technological supremacy.

Russian fake news website Panorama, which calls itself a satirical publication and is transparent about its fictional content, ran a fabricated interview with Liang Wenfeng, the founder of DeepSeek, in which he praised Soviet programmers.

The fake interview claimed that the code used by the startup was created in 1985 by a team led by scientist Viktor Glushkov, regarded as the creator of the first Soviet personal computer in the 1960s.

Glushkov also developed a data-processing network that was designed to help run the Soviet planned economy. Some Russian scientists argue that the network had some early features of artificial intelligence.

The fake story went viral and was reported by the Rossiya One national state television channel as if it was a genuine news item. It was also picked up by influential social media accounts.

“Not only was the Soviet Union the most educated and advanced country. The Soviet Union was a scientific and technological civilisation,” veteran Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said in a post on Telegram that was later removed.

Russia ranks only 31st out of 83 countries for AI implementation, innovation, and investment according to UK-based Tortoise Media’s Global AI Index, trailing not only the United States and China but also fellow BRICS members India and Brazil.

Russia, which has two major domestic AI models, is eyeing closely China’s successes in artificial intelligence as the latest DeepSeek models, released last month, have upended the global tech landscape.

(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)