DeepSeek—So far so good, but can it weather the restricted chip access storm?

Although DeepSeek’s AI model has already been integrated in their smart cockpits by most mainland Chinese automakers, it remains to be seen if it can sustain its innovative and agile product development approach to expand in foreign markets amidst a slew of regulatory and geopolitical hurdles.

Until recently, there had been a prevailing notion that developing leading-edge large language models (LLMs) require significant technical and financial resources. That notion, however, stands disrupted now by a Chinese AI startup DeepSeek which has unveiled advancements that are shaking up the global AI landscape. DeepSeek's open-source nature, affordability and low computational requirements are highlighted as advantages that could enable broader deployment of AI technologies across more car companies, signaling a particularly promising future in smart and autonomous vehicle development for example.