The release of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, has caused a significant impact in the tech industry by introducing free and competitively priced AI models that are comparable to leading US products like ChatGPT. This has drawn a large number of users to explore the innovative chatbot, resulting in DeepSeek's AI Assistant climbing to the top of app charts on both iPhone and Android platforms in various countries.
The latest version was revealed on January 20, garnering immediate acclaim from AI experts and attracting attention from the tech industry and beyond. US President Donald Trump described it as a "wake-up call" for American companies, urging them to prioritize winning in competition.
In India, the emergence of DeepSeek has ignited a discussion regarding the need for India to develop its own AI language models.
Rushabh Shah, an angel investor and Founder of angel investing platform Bolstart, said launch of DeepSeek AI should be a wake up call for India.
Taking to the social media platform X, Shah said that during the Pune Public Policy Festival conference, diplomats from Israel and Australia noted that building relationships with Indians takes time and multiple meetings over 'chai' before closing deals and agreements.
"Launch of DeepSeek AI should be a wake up call for India 🇮🇳 World is moving extremely fast:
- Trump making executive orders - DeepSeek wiping $2.3 trillion
Our gov. and people should start taking faster actionable decisions. Excuses such as we are a population of 1.4 billion is not acceptable anymore. Diplomats from Israel and Australia at the @PunePPF agreed on one point – Indians are very slow. You need to meet them multiple times over ‘Chai’ to close deals and agreements. We might fall behind if we keep delaying important decisions due to fear. Time to be Bold," Shah said.
Tech experts and stalwarts also added India would need a major overhaul to get up to speed in the AI race.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, former minister of state for electronics and IT, said: “The emergence of models like DeepSeek, and at the price that it has been built, are a reflection of the fact that compute power can never be a moat for too long between the countries that have early gains in just compute power compared to those that don't… hopefully Indian AI startups will cause disruptions down the road.”
“If DeepSeek can create an LLM in two years, why can't India do it? DeepSeek, in a matter of days, has completely upended how everyone sees artificial intelligence in terms of investment and as a technology to take advantage of. In one fell swoop, DeepSeek showed the world how to do everything established players — ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude Sonnet, etc — do, but better and cheaper," said Ajai Chowdhary, Chairman of the National Quantum Mission and Co-Founder of HCLTech.
Chowdhary emphasized the importance of India treating its citizens' data as a valuable national asset. He noted that despite the government's allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore for research and development in the last Budget, there has been minimal progress in implementation. He further stressed the need for the continuation of the India AI Mission to prevent the country from lagging behind in the global competition for AI dominance. According to Darshan Hiranandani, CEO of Hiranandani Group, the success of Deepseek highlights the potential to develop high-quality LLMs with significantly less investment than previously believed. This discovery has sparked a discussion on India's AI strategy, emphasizing the importance of increased government support and a shift in mindset. The recent developments surrounding DeepSeek's introduction are expected to prompt India to prioritize the creation of efficient LLMs for Indian languages.
“Most countries have $6 million and 2000 GPUs of H100. We have it at Yotta. But we haven’t created an ecosystem that invents. It’s a mindset issue.”
Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder and group CEO of Fractal, stressed the importance of government intervention. "We already have cutting-edge chips like the H100s," he said. "This is the time to act—it’s worth the investment."