OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has acknowledged DeepSeek’s growing presence in the AI space, praising the Chinese AI startup’s latest model while reaffirming OpenAI’s dominance. In a series of tweets, Altman described DeepSeek R1 as “an impressive model,” particularly for its pricing, while also making it clear that OpenAI remains ahead in AI advancements.
“We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! We will pull up some releases,” Altman posted on X (formerly Twitter).
His remarks come as DeepSeek R1, a Chinese AI language model, recently overtook ChatGPT on Apple’s App Store rankings in the US and continues to climb in India. The Hangzhou-based DeepSeek, backed by Tencent, has drawn attention for its low-cost AI services, claiming superior performance in reasoning and coding at a fraction of OpenAI’s pricing.
In follow-up tweets, Altman doubled down on OpenAI’s vision, emphasizing that greater computing power is essential for building next-generation AI models. “The world is going to want to use a LOT of AI, and really be quite amazed by the next-gen models coming,” he wrote, teasing future innovations from OpenAI.
He also made a bold declaration about the company’s long-term ambition: “Look forward to bringing you all AGI and beyond.”
This reference to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)—AI that surpasses human intelligence in most tasks—reinforces OpenAI’s mission to push the boundaries of machine intelligence.
Deepak Sharma, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at IA commented, "DeepSeek has emerged as a global disruptor in AI. While OpenAI’s Sam Altman dismissed the idea of building a serious competitor with just $10 million as 'hopeless' during his visit to India, a Chinese startup proved otherwise - coming within striking distance of OpenAI with just $6 million in training costs. Competing against the world’s largest tech giants with a fraction of their resources is impressive, but what makes DeepSeek’s feat even more remarkable is that it achieved this despite US export controls restricting access to advanced AI chips."
DeepSeek has positioned itself as a strong competitor, leveraging reinforcement learning, chain-of-thought reasoning, and ultra-low pricing to challenge industry giants like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic.
While OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pro costs $20 per month, DeepSeek offers cheaper API pricing, with $0.55 per million input tokens—a dramatic reduction compared to OpenAI’s $15 per million tokens for its “o1” model.
This affordability has fueled DeepSeek’s rapid adoption, with its app climbing the App Store charts globally and gaining traction in markets like India, China, and the US.
With OpenAI gearing up for major releases and DeepSeek gaining momentum, the AI industry is witnessing a fierce battle for dominance. Altman’s tweets signal that OpenAI is prepared to outpace its competitors, while DeepSeek’s disruptive pricing strategy ensures it remains a formidable player in the AI landscape.