China’s AI is eroding US AI advances (and they are improving because they aren’t trying to get a patentable producti to market)
Scott Rosenberg, 1-27, 25, Stunning breakthroughs from China’s DeepSeek AI alarm U.S. rivals, Axios, https://www.axios.com/2025/01/27/deepseek-ai-model-china-openai-rival
Breakthroughs from Chinese AI startup DeepSeek have stunned Silicon Valley and could bring turbulence to Wall Street, as they were accomplished at a fraction of what the U.S. giants are spending and despite export bans on top-of-the-line chips. Why it matters: China’s rapid advances suggest America’s strategy of withholding technology from China might just be speeding up the evolution of its rival’s AI knowhow. DeepSeek’s rise is alarming the likes of Meta, which announced Friday that it plans $60 billion-$65 billion in capital investment this year as it scales up its own AI projects. But it could potentially also be bad news for Nvidia, which designs the world’s most advanced AI chips, because DeepSeek is proving that rapid advances are possible even with fewer and less sophisticated chips. Nvidia’s stock slid on Friday and again in overnight trading last night, pulling the Nasdaq down with it. Driving the news: DeepSeek hit No. 1 on Apple’s App Store a week after the Jan. 20 release of its R1 model, which works along similar lines to OpenAI’s o1. Presented with a complex challenge, it takes time to consider alternate approaches before picking the best solution — and it explains its chain of reasoning to users. These “reasoning” models are especially good at coding and math. Just last month another DeepSeek model, v3, stunned AI experts by providing performance comparable to OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s most advanced publicly available general models, as Axios reported. The kicker is that DeepSeek created and released its entirely open source project for about $6 million in training costs (“a joke of a budget,” in one expert’s words). OpenAI is spending hundreds of millions of dollars. The results from China have turned eyes around the world and revved up concerns in the U.S. that its lead in the so-called AI race between the two superpowers may be shrinking. DeepSeek spun out of a Chinese hedge-fund firm two years ago, hired ambitious young AI scientists, and set them to figure out more efficient ways to develop models, per Wired, and they focused on basic research rather than consumer product development. The other side: It’s not as though the U.S.’ efforts to keep the best chips out of China haven’t had an impact. DeepSeek is said to have already amassed a training network of 10,000 Nvidia H100s by the time U.S. sanctions were introduced in 2022. But DeepSeek’s CEO has said that the export controls, and resulting scarcity of Nvidia’s top-of-the-line chips, have been “a problem.” No one knows where DeepSeek would stand today if it didn’t face those roadblocks. We also can’t say whether DeepSeek would be making such rapid advances on its own without having the latest work from OpenAI and its U.S. competitors to aim at. Our thought bubble: Scarcity drives innovation, China has some great AI minds at work, and the U.S. might need to rethink its strategy. Silicon Valley’s startup culture relentlessly pushes research in the direction of the consumer market. But sometimes, particularly when a field is young and applications aren’t immediately obvious, basic research is even more important than market share — and open research tends to overwhelm secret research. OpenAI’s pivot from “world’s best AI lab” to “aspiring consumer tech giant” has wowed the financial world but could leave the U.S. in second place.
Deal coming on the Ukraine
Charles Gasparino, 1-25, 24, Business elites truly believe Trump could be on the verge of solving one of the world’s most difficult problems: The Ukraine War, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/business-elites-truly-believe-trump-could-be-on-the-verge-of-solving-one-of-the-world-s-most-difficult-problems-the-ukraine-war/ar-AA1xRjMu?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=d5cd483d540f4ae994e9aa6c1e12b688&ei=19
DAVOS, Switzerland — Donald Trump’s first week in office was a whirlwind: executive orders on everything from closing the border to ending federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mandates. Social media postings announced new business initiatives and put world leaders on notice that a new sheriff is in town. Valentine Fun for Students – Activities & Adorable Crafts Discount School Supply Valentine Fun for Students – Activities & Adorable Crafts Ad Heads were spinning among the business and political elites, both back home and here at the World Economic Forum, the annual confab of the globalist crowd where I’ve been hanging for the past few days. That’s because the decidedly non-globalist Trump, people here truly believe, could be on the verge of solving maybe the most intractable problem the world faces: The nearly three-year armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Until now, it showed no signs of ending and even threatened nuclear war. Yet after a few well-timed comments from The Donald about how his alleged man-crush Vladimir Putin needs to get to the negotiating table, there’s fresh optimism that the conflict will end and war-ravaged Ukraine could once again start receiving flows of private capital brokered by the big banks. Recall, it was around this time about a year ago when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky began wooing investors for redevelopment money. ‘Trump Would’ve Stopped the War in a Day’: Russia’s Putin Shocks World With Praises for US President Ukraine has an educated population where English is almost a second language and a resilient people as evidenced by how its smallish army has repelled the Russian war machine. What’s not to like if you’re looking to rebuild the country and want a return on capital? Well for starters, the continued conflict with Russia is a no-go for private money; you don’t risk capital while the missiles are still flying. Zelensky was told as much last year in Davos, and just days ago when he arrived here to press the flesh. Offer Vlad can’t refuse But there’s a difference this time around in Davos, my reporting indicates, and it’s summed up perfectly by a foreign diplomat at the popular Ukrainian breakfast I attended at the invitation of Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk. The diplomat reminded the audience that a “rainmaker” named Donald Trump is now in charge of the world’s leading superpower and he’s looking to make an offer that Putin can’t refuse to end the war. As in the US, even the global elite knows the world got a huge upgrade in Trump over sleepy Joe Biden. Yes, Biden threw billions of dollars into Ukraine’s war effort but much of the most needed war material came in fits and spurts; he never made the case to the American people as to why Ukraine is important to US global interests. He ignored massive domestic problems, i.e. inflation, the border, and crime, which undermined his case for Ukraine aid. Trump is at bottom a pragmatist and he’s ready to wield American power in a smart way when it advances our interests. There’s a backlash now — Americans want to fix the home front first. Trump put a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid, which includes Ukraine. Yet here’s why there’s hope for the future of Ukraine, at least according to the bankers and diplomats following this saga: The rainmaker wants a deal to end the war and fast; he said as much in no uncertain terms during the confab, one of the event’s major highlights. Best Walking Shoes for Men to Wear All Day Without Discomfort Men’s Sneaker Best Walking Shoes for Men to Wear All Day Without Discomfort Ad Dealing with the despot Trump isn’t the Putin lackey the left spins to its media sources. People in Davos reminded me that during Trump I, he supplied Ukraine with deadly Javelin missiles after Obama refused. He’s also been briefed on the brutality of this war, understands the treachery of Putin, and the strategic importance of Ukraine in Europe with its strong military and bounty of natural resources, I am told. Trump during his first term got along with Putin, but that’s how he does business even with despots. I’ve been covering him for years as a real estate developer and now in national politics, and let’s just say Trump likes you until he doesn’t. More than anything, Trump hates being outmaneuvered by anyone, Putin included. And now he’s telling Putin to get to the negotiating table to stop this thing or else. The “or else” might be something other than weapons, like real economic sanctions with teeth. Ramping up oil production might depress prices enough to put Russia’s oil-dependent economy into further economic despair; tariffs on Russian goods and additional sanctions could send the Russian economy into a full-scale meltdown, as Trump reminded his pal in a recent social media post. Here in Davos, I both attended and moderated sessions at a private confab hosted by Pinchuk; I was struck by how Ukrainians and even globalist bankers embraced Trump’s overall message including his position that there are limits to American aid. The Europeans need to step up in ways they so far haven’t to prevent a broader conflict on their soil. Putin is of course a treacherous man, but in dealmaking with Trump, he’s playing in the big leagues. Yes, he has nukes, but so do we, as Trump has reminded him. If there is a solid peace deal, and people here are increasingly confident that with Trump there will be, the bloodshed will stop and the private money will start flowing.
Putin doesn’t want to end the war – he has a financial incentive to keep it going
Kolesnikov, 1-23, 25, Andrei Kolesnikov is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Foreign Affairs, The Cold War Putin Wants Why Russia Seeks to Change, Not End, the Conflict in Ukraine, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/cold-war-putin-wants
Three years after launching his “special military operation” in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin faces a looming choice. In public, he exudes optimism. He has pulled his country back from the abyss and, with military means, defended its sovereignty, or rather what he calls sovereignty. Had he not done so, he asserts, Russia would have ceased to exist. Meanwhile, Russia’s GDP is growing—it increased by around four percent in 2024, according to official figures—and wages are not only rising but also apparently keeping up with prices despite an annual inflation rate now running at more than nine percent. Behind this façade, the military budget has doubled in three years and growth is overwhelmingly being driven by the military economy; the consumer sector, where inflation is even higher, is stagnant. Yet so far it all seems tolerable to ordinary Russians. The Kremlin has gained further control over society, even as it allows several aspects of private life to continue undisturbed. And the war, although its costs keep going up, is apparently going Russia’s way: by Putin’s telling, Russian forces “liberated” at least 189 settlements in Ukraine in 2024, and Western air defenses have no chance against Russia’s newest missile. The population shows signs of war fatigue, but in general all the happy reports of military successes are taken for granted: according to survey data from the independent Levada Center, performative or genuine support for the special operation has plateaued at around 75 percent of the population, including 45 percent who say they are definitely in favor of military action and 30 percent somewhat in favor. (Although more than a third of Russians also say that the return to the White House of Donald Trump, who has vowed to quickly end the war, might be good for Russia, even more think it will make no difference.) But in reality, all is not well as Russia enters the new year. In using hard power, Putin has lost soft power. By trying to rebuild the Russian empire, he is losing Russian influence over its former territories. In seeking to increase the distance between Russia’s borders and NATO, he has brought about the opposite: the transatlantic alliance is now, as the Kremlin darkly warns, “at the gates.” The home front is equally unsettled. The economy is structured more and more in a war- and state-skewed way, with the central bank’s punishingly high benchmark interest rate of 21 percent—necessary to control inflation—driving some businesses to the brink of bankruptcy. By prioritizing security, the Kremlin has made Russians less safe: for many, daily life now consists of either waiting for an enemy drone to arrive or, for those who are against the war, for a decisive knock on the door by the authorities. Social mores have been corroded by the banalization of violence, and patriotism is now seen as the willingness to sell oneself to the trenches for an ever-higher price, in the form of lavish enlistment bonuses and salaries. The censorship that destroyed Russia’s independent news media has gradually spread into education, theater, film, book publishing, and even museum politics. Entire social groups are being stigmatized and persecuted, from migrants and civic activists to scholars and intellectuals, who are now often designated as “foreign agents.” Comparisons with his Soviet predecessors do not redound in Putin’s favor: the post-Stalinist Soviet Union was proud of Sputnik; Putin’s Russia is proud of Oreshnik, its latest hypersonic missile. A still larger problem is the future. Having brought the country this far, it is unclear that Putin and his team can go back. Demilitarizing the economy and demobilizing the public would risk undermining the system that sustains his rule. Even as the costs keep going up, Putin needs a permanent war to preserve what pro-government sociologists call “the Donbas consensus”—the majority of Russians who support military action and the Kremlin’s increasingly personalist approach to power. Here, then, is the dilemma that Putin faces in 2025: ending the war would be just as dangerous as waging it.
Nowhere near to negotiations that will end the war; containment key
Kolesnikov, 1-23, 25, Andrei Kolesnikov is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Foreign Affairs, The Cold War Putin Wants Why Russia Seeks to Change, Not End, the Conflict in Ukraine, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/cold-war-putin-wants
All the same, a peace agreement will satisfy Putin only if he can decide that the old Russia has been restored and the world has once again been divided between the superpowers: a mixture of Munich and Yalta, a deal to buy peace and formalize the new cold war. But this reestablished Russian empire would be an empire only in Putin’s head. It would be repudiated everywhere else. Any deal to end the Ukrainian conflict is still a long way off, given that the two sides have very different understandings of the concessions that would be required. But if it does take place, it will not be enough for Putin to redivide Europe with Trump, keep Russia in close alliance with China, and continue playing his games with the “global majority.” To complete his “just” picture of the world, Putin needs Ukraine, not the Baltic nations, Finland, or Poland: for that kind of expansion he doesn’t have the material and demographic resources, or the reserves of patience of the Russian population. Even now, Putin has already begun to make his own division—he doesn’t see western Ukraine so much as “his” territory, because, unlike Crimea and the eastern part of the country, it is culturally and historically Western and in this sense alien to him. If there is a new cold war, then the West may also be entering a new era of containment. But it is a far more complex situation than in the old days. Rather than to two mostly rational superpowers, the world is now hostage to three unpredictable and dangerous leaders: Putin, Trump, and Xi.