Yazılar

Lawmakers Urge Trump to Consider New Curbs on Nvidia Chips Used by China’s DeepSeek

/in /tarafından

U.S. lawmakers are calling on President Donald Trump’s administration to consider imposing new export controls on Nvidia’s AI chips, particularly the H20 model, which they allege is being used by China’s AI company DeepSeek. Republican John Moolenaar and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, co-chairs of the House of Representatives Select Committee on China, sent a letter to National Security Advisor Michael Waltz urging a review of the U.S. export control system.

The lawmakers expressed concern that the H20 chip, which is not currently covered by existing U.S. export restrictions, is being used in DeepSeek’s newly released sophisticated AI model. This comes amid growing concerns in Washington over China’s rapid advancements in AI. DeepSeek, which recently launched a free AI assistant, claims its technology uses significantly less data and is far more cost-effective than incumbent models, potentially marking a shift in the AI investment landscape.

In addition to the lawmakers’ letter, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Chief Administrative Officer notified offices not to use DeepSeek’s technology, citing an ongoing review. The U.S. government has long been concerned that China could leverage AI for cyberattacks or even bioweapons development, prompting former President Joe Biden to initiate measures to limit China’s access to AI chips.

Nvidia responded, stating that its products comply with all U.S. regulations and that the company is open to collaborating with the administration on AI-related matters.

India’s IT Minister Praises DeepSeek’s Low-Cost AI, Draws Parallels with IndiaAI Mission

/in /tarafından

India’s IT minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, has praised Chinese startup DeepSeek for its groundbreaking low-cost AI assistant, highlighting the startup’s frugal approach as a model that resonates with India’s own AI ambitions. Speaking at an event in Odisha, Vaishnaw drew a comparison between the $5.5 million investment DeepSeek used to create a powerful AI model and India’s $1.25 billion commitment to the IndiaAI mission.

The IndiaAI mission, announced in March, aims to develop a robust AI ecosystem by funding startups and creating the necessary infrastructure to support AI innovation. Vaishnaw’s comments came as he pointed out the cost-effectiveness of DeepSeek’s approach, which took just two months and under $6 million to develop its AI model using Nvidia’s less-advanced H800 chips.

DeepSeek’s success has been a game-changer in the AI sector, surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT in downloads on Apple’s App Store. The startup’s impressive performance challenges the prevailing belief that China is far behind the U.S. in the AI race and raises questions about the high costs traditionally associated with building AI models.

Vaishnaw’s statement also appeared to counter remarks made by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during a visit to India last year. Altman had expressed skepticism about India’s ability to develop a competitive AI model on a $10 million budget, calling it “totally hopeless” to compete on training foundation models. Vaishnaw’s comments are now drawing attention, especially as Altman is set to visit India again in early February amid a legal battle with Indian digital news and book publishers over copyright issues.

 

Meta Reports Strong Q4 Sales But Forecasts Muted Outlook Amid AI Investments

/in /tarafından

Meta Platforms (META.O) exceeded Wall Street expectations for its fourth-quarter revenue, reporting $48.4 billion, which outpaced analysts’ predictions of $47 billion. Despite this strong performance, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram issued a cautious outlook for the first quarter of 2025, with expected revenue between $39.5 billion and $41.8 billion, slightly below the analysts’ consensus of $41.72 billion.

Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, struck an optimistic tone during a conference call, focusing on the company’s AI initiatives. He expressed confidence in the open-source AI strategy, commenting that the emergence of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s AI models reinforced his belief in this direction. “There’s going to be an open-source standard globally,” Zuckerberg remarked, emphasizing that he sees it as an American standard.

However, Meta’s outlook raised questions about the company’s capital spending, as the company relies on its core social media advertising business to finance its significant AI and “metaverse” investments, such as smart glasses and augmented reality systems. Meta has already committed up to $65 billion in capital expenditures for 2025 to expand its AI infrastructure, alongside increasing AI-related hires. The company also anticipates total expenses for 2025 to be between $114 billion and $119 billion, up from $95 billion in 2024.

Jeremy Goldman, principal analyst at eMarketer, noted that while Meta’s fourth-quarter results were strong, the key issue going into 2025 is whether its substantial AI investments will pay off. He highlighted that Meta’s family daily active people (DAP) metric, which tracks unique users who open any of its apps in a day, grew by 5% year-over-year to 3.35 billion.

Meta’s results came after DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, launched new models that outperformed top U.S. competitors at a fraction of the cost, fueling concerns about the sustainability of U.S. AI business models and triggering a tech stock selloff. Zuckerberg acknowledged the challenges posed by DeepSeek but said it was too early to determine how its global impact would affect Meta’s AI strategy. He added that Meta’s AI teams were already incorporating insights from DeepSeek’s models into their work.

Meta continues to face financial losses in its metaverse-focused Reality Labs unit, which, while exceeding sales expectations, still reported a $5 billion loss in Q4. Despite these losses, Zuckerberg believes the long-term business potential of AI will become evident after 2025.

Meta’s hefty investment in AI includes plans to acquire more of Nvidia’s AI chips and develop custom silicon to train AI systems for better feed recommendations by next year. CFO Susan Li confirmed the company’s goal to use its own chips for these AI tasks. Meta’s continued investment in AI is part of its broader strategy to enhance user experiences across its platforms, while also aiming for cost reductions in AI model development.