DeepSeek is reportedly exploring a “semiconductor” venture, as the firm is now said to be eager to develop in-house AI chips, adding to its computational capabilities.
DeepSeek Might Join Its Arch-Rival OpenAI In The Race For In-House AI Chips, Although It Will Take Time For Now
DeepSeek has evolved massively over the past few months, going from a “side project” to a firm that managed to disrupt the global AI industry with the release of its cutting-edge LLM models. Not only was the firm able to compete with OpenAI’s GPT o1, but it was also said to have access to limited computing power, although this was refuted in a report that we discussed here. Now, according to DigiTimes, DeepSeek is exploring the possibility of creating its own AI chips, joining the bandwagon of other mainstream AI firms looking to opt for the same route.
While the report doesn’t mention much about DeepSeek’s chip projects, it claims that the company has started a “major recruitment drive,” hiring semiconductor experts to lead the project. It isn’t as easy as it might sound since developing an AI chip requires an extensive supply chain process, and for Chinese companies, the primary issue lies in acquiring the necessary semiconductor processes due to global sanctions. The only chip access they have is through sources like SMIC, but they, too, are way behind the worldwide semiconductor cadence.
For now, it is claimed that DeepSeek has access to around 10,000 of NVIDIA’s “China-specific” H800 AI GPUs and 10,000 of the higher-end H100 AI chips, totaling around $1 billion of computing resources. Despite seeing trade restrictions from the US, it hasn’t held DeepSeek back at all since the AI firm does have equipment on par with what its competitors own, and likely there’s much more as well, which is undisclosed for now. Apart from this, the firm also operates inferencing workloads on Huawei’s Ascend AI chips. Hence, they do have a diverse arsenal.
The concept of in-house chips for DeepSeek is undoubtedly questionable, given that the firm hasn’t evolved as large as competitors like OpenAI, but it is great to see the company exploring the option since it will increase diversity in the AI market. The key question lies in whether DeepSeek manages to reach the implementation stages.
