WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF
What if the Chinese government boosted Deepseek as a display of soft power and tanked US stocks in the process?
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When it comes to successes going viral sometimes not everything is what it seems. Take DeepSeek, the breakthrough not breakthrough Chinese Artificial Intelligence (AI) which rose to global fame in just a day. While it seemed to originally go viral on its own merits now it turns out that the Chinese government was boosting it on social media days before it actually gained viral global attention, which could be an interesting example of a Soft Power play, especially as China vies for AI dominance by 2030.
Which then begs the questions … what happens when companies go viral not “organically” but as part of a carefully designed state sponsored campaign? And, bearing in mind that DeepSeek alone wiped over $1.3 Trillion from US stocks, a further $720 Billion from Indian stocks, and boosted the Hong Kong stock exchange by $1.3 Trillion, and also put Chinese AI “back on the map” then you might suddenly see why governments helping their companies go viral might be an interesting example of Soft Power and state power plays in action … Which is something that, until now, we haven’t seen happening out in the wild – or at all – and which could mark a new era in global power plays.
The inside scoop on Deepseek, by AI Speaker Matthew Griffin
Chinese state-linked social media accounts amplified narratives celebrating the launch of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s AI models a week ahead of its official launch and days before the news tanked US tech stocks, according to online analysis firm Graphika.
The accounts involved in the effort, including those of Chinese diplomats, embassies and state media, amplified media coverage of the launch and promoted the idea that DeepSeek challenged US dominance in the AI sector, New York-based Graphika said in a report it provided to Reuters on Thursday.
The messaging was rolled out on platforms such as Elon Musk’s X, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as Chinese services Toutiao and Weibo, Graphika said.
“This activity shows how China is able to quickly mobilize a range of actors that seed and amplify online narratives casting Beijing as surpassing the US in critical areas of geopolitical competition, including the race to develop and deploy the most advanced AI technologies,” Graphika Chief Intelligence Officer Jack Stubbs told Reuters.
“We’ve consistently seen overt and covert Chinese state-linked actors among the first movers in leveraging AI to scale their operations in the information environment.”
Graphika said it also found a video featuring pro-China, anti-Western content on a YouTube channel whose activity resembled that of Shadow Play, a coordinated influence campaign involving at least 30 YouTube channels that was first identified by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in 2023.
YouTube owner Alphabet, Meta, X and the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.
Graphika said it found a small spike in discussion about DeepSeek’s advancements in relation to OpenAI’s ChatGPT on X immediately after DeepSeek released its models on Jan. 20, followed by a much larger uptick that started on Friday and continued to build over the weekend.
By Monday, DeepSeek’s free AI assistant had overtaken US rival ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s app store and global investors dumped US tech stocks, wiping $593 billion off chipmaker Nvidia’s market value in a record one-day loss for any company on Wall Street.
DeepSeek’s researchers claim to have developed aspects of their AI model at a far lower cost than US rivals, sparking worries that US companies that have plowed tens of billions of dollars into AI data centers could face a price war with China.
Shares of Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI that operates data centers on behalf of the ChatGPT creator, slid earlier this week when it disclosed slower cloud revenue growth than Wall Street expected while it continued to plow billions into capital expenditures.
Microsoft and Meta have vowed to continue deep investments in AI for the foreseeable future.
DeepSeek’s rise to prominence was celebrated in China as a sign that the nation was beating back Washington’s attempts to contain China’s tech industry with curbs on technology exports.
In the US, DeepSeek’s accomplishments sparked accusations that it had improperly accessed technology from OpenAI and other leaders, though the allegations remain unproved.
The US Commerce Department is looking into whether DeepSeek has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, a person familiar with the matter said.
