Countries to join US-China AI competition

ANKARA

Countries are expected to join the artificial intelligence (AI) competition between the US and China, especially after the release of the Chinese AI chatbot, DeepSeek.

China’s move to gain an edge in the AI war against the US carried the competition to the next level.

DeepSeek R1, a free and open-source reasoning-focused large language model (LLM), shook the tech world with its launch, rivaling the likes of US-based OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its most advanced model, the o1, which currently costs $200 per month to use within limitations.

Following DeepSeek, Chinese firm Alibaba released Qwen 2.5 LLM, further escalating the AI war with the US.

As a response, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X that ChatGPT’s upcoming o3-mini model will be available to access in the free tier. The o1-mini model is also available for free, though it is limited to five queries per day. The o3-mini model will allow 100 queries per day with a $20 per month Plus tier subscription.

While China and the US compete against each other in the AI war, other countries like the UK, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Singapore, and France are also looking to get involved with investments and upcoming projects.

Zafer Kucuksabanoglu, chairman of the Turkish nonprofit, Artificial Intelligence Policy Association (AIPA), told Anadolu that the increasing power and market value of tech firms and their relations with world governments bring about new diplomatic strategies.

Kucuksabanoglu said the heads of tech giants attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.

“It is the biggest proof that ‘techno-feudalism’ has begun,” he said.

He highlighted that AI technologies are expected to reach a market size of $15.7 trillion by 2030.

“The launch of DeepSeek and its unprecedented prominence among millions of users worldwide indicate that the US and China reached the peak of AI competition, as it is the case between the two countries in every field,” he noted.

Kucuksabanoglu stated that some companies in the US and Europe have been seeing declines in market value, and he said he expects the AI competition between American and Chinese firms to heat up in the following period and other countries to join.

“Countries are taking strategic steps in AI, examining its economic value and security,” he said.

He noted that China holds most AI patents and the US has made great investments and allocated resources to AI efforts.

“The UK, France, and the United Arab Emirates don’t want to fall behind in the AI competition, so they established public institutions, especially the Artificial Intelligence Office and an AI university in the UAE, while Singapore began providing AI training to provide employees over 40 with free courses, and France opened its first AI office and allocated €2 billion (nearly $2.1 billion) from the 2024-2030 defense budget,” he said.

Kucuksabanoglu said Türkiye has seven firms with a market cap exceeding $1 billion and that the country should make strategic decisions to be at the forefront of the AI competition worldwide, with education as the number one priority.

“Türkiye can enter among the top 20 countries in AI, especially by leveraging the immense interest in AI among young people aged 0-21,” he said.

Mustafa Calis, president of the Turkish Software Developers Federation (TUYAFED), told Anadolu that China started to tip the scale in the global AI and technology competition with investments in recent years.

“Tech wars continue at full speed worldwide and we can say that countries with investments in AI will have a say in the world today and in the future,” he said. “The rapid rise of DeepSeek and the transition to an ‘artificial super intelligence’ will transform the sector,”

Calis noted that DeepSeek’s $6 million budget led to losses for tech giants, despite being met with criticism at first.

“I can easily say that DeepSeek tipped the balance and different firms will soon emerge with similar offerings and the AI competition will only further escalate from here,” he noted.