Seedance 2.0 Explodes in China, Praised by Elon Musk and Called "Second DeepSeek"

Seedance 2.0, viral in China and immediately compared to the success of DeepSeek. (photo; x @peruinformado_)

JAKARTA - ByteDance's latest video-making artificial intelligence model, Seedance 2.0, went viral in China and was immediately compared to the success of DeepSeek. This model even attracted the attention of billionaire Elon Musk, who said its development was happening very quickly.

The official launch of Seedance 2.0 was held on Thursday, February 12. ByteDance stated that the system was designed for professional needs such as film production, e-commerce, and advertising because it is capable of processing text, images, audio, and video simultaneously, thereby reducing content production costs.

Video and image-based AI models are now seen as the next stage in the evolution of artificial intelligence, after text-based models such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek R1 have been widely adopted globally.

The launch of this product comes amid the search for the next "DeepSeek moment", referring to the R1 and V3 models of Chinese startup DeepSeek which in early 2025 triggered a global shock in the technology industry.

On Chinese social media, Seedance 2.0 was immediately compared to the rise of DeepSeek. The Global Times newspaper wrote in its editorial, "Early last year, the launch of DeepSeek-R1 sparked a fierce debate in the US technology community about the 'Sputnik moment'."

"This year, the continued success of Seedance 2.0 and similar innovations have gone further, triggering a wave of admiration for China in Silicon Valley," the state-backed media wrote.

The Seedance 2.0 echo grew stronger when Elon Musk responded to a post praising the model on the X platform with a short comment, "It's happening fast."

On the Weibo microblogging platform, users shared various videos of Seedance 2.0's creations that show the complexity of the storyline and the cinematic visual quality, even from unusual prompts.

One two-minute video that has been viewed about a million times features rapper and record producer Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and reality star Kim Kardashian, as characters in a Chinese-set imperial palace drama, speaking and singing in Mandarin.

Tags related to Seedance 2.0 have garnered tens of millions of clicks on Weibo. One of them is from the Beijing Daily, a state-owned newspaper, which wrote, "From DeepSeek to Seedance, China's AI has succeeded."