I agree with the general ideas here, but I’m surprised you didn’t mention that DeepSeek used OpenAI’s algorithms to help train their model. It’s looking like this was at least partially a case of technology transfer, and that’s how they avoided some of the huge costs of training their own model.
A very interesting article. In the context of whether China has the capability for genuine innovation, it should be noted that western Biopharma companies have been beating a path to Chinese companies (in reality a stampede) to uncover new drugs of late. In 2024 such in-licensing of assets (from China) constituted around one third of total in-licensed drugs (which is significant). To emphasize, these are novel drugs and not generics or copies of western drugs. Thus, I would say that China is unquestionably a source of innovation.
One aspect of the DeepSeek story I've not yet seen reported is DeepSeek as an act of national philanthropy, basically Liang Wenfeng giving back to the nation after the crackdown on the antisocial success of his trading business.
If this is in fact part of his motivation and thinking, despite his organization's not being a typical state champion and apparently not adopting typical organizational practices, there is an interesting nationalist dimension here.
"As development economists would remind us, all technology must first be transferred to and absorbed by latecomers; only then can they innovate and create breakthroughs of their own. Thus, tech transfer and indigenous innovation are not mutually exclusive — they’re part of the same sequential progression. " - This begs the question then whether any country can actually develop tech on its own without theft (as the US, China, and Japan have done) or the stronger power willingly sharing.
Very nice article on Chinese work culture. But I would venture to speculate that this pedagogal education and regimented work ethic is more of a feature than a hinderance with respect to the needs of the CCP. I would think that the CCP finds lateral thinking to be a threat to their hold on authority. It would be interesting to know the flow of the conversation between the government representatives and Wenfeng. Are they impressed or is he on a tight leash? After all, given that they were free to experiment to create the V3 and R1 model, they could have easily fine-tuned out the most obvious anti-CCP rhetoric. But rather they decided on system level guard rails to handle sensitive topics. Moreover, as it is open sourced for download, end users who host the model can now have all this information at their finger tips.
Very nice article !
Nice article Jordan!
Super interesting read!
I agree with the general ideas here, but I’m surprised you didn’t mention that DeepSeek used OpenAI’s algorithms to help train their model. It’s looking like this was at least partially a case of technology transfer, and that’s how they avoided some of the huge costs of training their own model.
A very interesting article. In the context of whether China has the capability for genuine innovation, it should be noted that western Biopharma companies have been beating a path to Chinese companies (in reality a stampede) to uncover new drugs of late. In 2024 such in-licensing of assets (from China) constituted around one third of total in-licensed drugs (which is significant). To emphasize, these are novel drugs and not generics or copies of western drugs. Thus, I would say that China is unquestionably a source of innovation.
Great great article.
One aspect of the DeepSeek story I've not yet seen reported is DeepSeek as an act of national philanthropy, basically Liang Wenfeng giving back to the nation after the crackdown on the antisocial success of his trading business.
If this is in fact part of his motivation and thinking, despite his organization's not being a typical state champion and apparently not adopting typical organizational practices, there is an interesting nationalist dimension here.
"As development economists would remind us, all technology must first be transferred to and absorbed by latecomers; only then can they innovate and create breakthroughs of their own. Thus, tech transfer and indigenous innovation are not mutually exclusive — they’re part of the same sequential progression. " - This begs the question then whether any country can actually develop tech on its own without theft (as the US, China, and Japan have done) or the stronger power willingly sharing.
Very nice article on Chinese work culture. But I would venture to speculate that this pedagogal education and regimented work ethic is more of a feature than a hinderance with respect to the needs of the CCP. I would think that the CCP finds lateral thinking to be a threat to their hold on authority. It would be interesting to know the flow of the conversation between the government representatives and Wenfeng. Are they impressed or is he on a tight leash? After all, given that they were free to experiment to create the V3 and R1 model, they could have easily fine-tuned out the most obvious anti-CCP rhetoric. But rather they decided on system level guard rails to handle sensitive topics. Moreover, as it is open sourced for download, end users who host the model can now have all this information at their finger tips.
we'll just have to see!