JAKARTA India's Minister of Information Technology, Arwini Vaishnaw, on Tuesday, January 28, praised the AI startup from China, DeepSeek, who managed to shock the industry with its low-cost AI assistant. He compared DeepSek's cost-effective approach to the Indian government's strategy of building a local AI model.

India previously announced an investment of USD 1.25 billion (IDR 20.3 trillion) in the IndiaAI Mission project in March, which includes funding for AI startups as well as the development of domestic artificial intelligence infrastructure.

"Some question the amount of investment the government has allocated in IndiaAI Mission. Look what DeepSek is doing? With only 5.5 million US dollars (Rp89.3 billion), they managed to create a very strong AI model. That's because they use their brains," Vaishnaw said on Tuesday at an event in Odisha state.

DeepSek's success has changed the world's perspective on investment in artificial intelligence. These startups claim that they only took two months and less than $6 million to develop an AI model using an Nvidia H800 chip, which is simpler than the advanced chips used by US companies.

The DeepSek app has even surpassed the number of ChatGPT downloads on the Apple App Store, proving that China is not far behind in the global AI race.

Smooth Satire For Sam Altman

Vaishnaw's statement also appears to be insinuating OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's comments, who last year doubted that the Indian team was able to build an OpenAI-class AI model with only $ 10 million (IDR 162.5 billion).

"We're going to say it's impossible to compete with us in basic AI model training. You shouldn't try it. However, your job is to keep trying it. And I believe in both things," said Altman, quoted by VOI from Reuters.

Now, the statement is being discussed on social media again, especially after DeepSek's success, proving otherwise.

Altman is scheduled to return to India on February 5, amid a legal feud between his company and news publisher and digital books in India over copyright infringement.


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