Google CEO Sundar Pichai praised Chinese AI startup DeepSeek on Wednesday, which created a competitive AI model for under $6 million compared to the industry standard of $100 million.
"I think the DeepSeek team has done very, very good work," Pichai said at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
Pichai said Google learned some lessons from DeepSeek's rise to the top of the Apple App Store and Google Play charts last month, including showing the world "how global" AI competition really is.
"I think the DeepSeek innovation reinforces that point," he said.
Related: 'Pride of His Hometown': Who Is DeepSeek Founder Liang Wenfeng?
Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Boris Streubel/Getty Images for DFB
Pichai also praised DeepSeek's AI for being highly efficient and releasing accurate results while using minimal computing power. According to DeepSeek's technical report, the startup only used 2,000 AI chips to train its AI model, compared to Meta, which used more than 16,000 chips for its latest AI.
More chips require more money. Pierre Ferragu, a New Street Research analyst, told the New York Times last month that Google spent $2 billion to $3 billion last year creating a million custom AI chips, while Amazon spent $200 million building 100,000 AI chips.
DeepSeek's AI is also open-source, meaning that developers around the world can freely access its work and build more advanced AI on top of it.
Related: DeepSeek AI Cost Less Than $6 Million to Develop. Here's Why Meta and Microsoft Are Justifying Spending Billions.
"I think what caught people's attention with DeepSeek was that you could have an efficient model and open-source and something everyone can immediately access, and I think that creates a lot of excitement," Pichai said.
He stated that Google was focused on efficiency, too.
Google released its Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite AI model last week, calling it the company's "most cost-efficient model yet" without going into specifics about how much it cost to make.
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