By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING, Feb 12 (Reuters) — One year after Chinese startup DeepSeek rattled the global tech industry with the release of a low-cost artificial intelligence model, its domestic rivals are better prepared, vying with it to launch new models, some designed with more consumer appeal.
The Hangzhou-based firm’s meteoric rise in early 2025, during China’s Spring Festival holiday, upended China’s AI industry, pushing low-cost, open-source models to the forefront of its AI ecosystem.This time, DeepSeek will be joined by several other firms in launching new products around China’s longest and busiest holiday period, which officially begins on February 15.
While the industry was stunned when DeepSeek broke through with a strong AI model despite U.S. export controls restricting access to advanced semiconductors, now the market wants to see what Chinese companies come up with next, said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a managing director at Ankura Consulting in Beijing.
«The surprise would be if some of these new models end up being underwhelming. I think there are high expectations here,» he said.
Zhipu AI on Wednesday released its latest AI model, which it said features enhanced coding capabilities and the ability to perform long-running tasks without any user prompts.
ByteDance on Thursday officially unveiled Seedance 2.0, a video generation AI model «capable of producing cinematic blockbusters in seconds», according to the Chinese state-backed Global Times newspaper.
ByteDance is also expected to roll out upgrades to its Doubao chatbot, currently China’s most popular AI app with 155.2 million weekly active users, according to QuestMobile.
DeepSeek, too, is preparing to release its next-generation model V4 and rival Alibaba is expected to unveil its Qwen 3.5 series, featuring improved mathematical reasoning and coding capabilities, tech industry news site The Information reported last month.
Qwen developers submitted support code earlier this month for «upcoming Qwen 3.5 series models» to the open-source repository Hugging Face, typically a sign that a release is imminent.
Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek have not announced a formal release date for their upgraded models. The companies did not respond to a request for comment.
LOW-COST, OPEN SOURCE NOW THE NORM
DeepSeek’s initial release in January 2025 triggered a global tech selloff and wiped $593 billion from AI chipmaker Nvidia’s market value in a single day and spurred its Chinese rivals to release upgrades to their own models.