Seek and Deploy: China’s Tech Giants Race to Adopt DeepSeek AI
From Tencent to Baidu, major firms slash costs and streamline access as they integrate DeepSeek into cloud platforms and AI services.By He Qitong
Weeks after Chinese startup DeepSeek disrupted global markets for rivaling OpenAI and Google, its open-source AI models are being rapidly integrated into China’s top cloud platforms.
Over the past week, Chinese tech giants including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei have launched support for DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-V3, the AI company’s open-source models, competing to offer lower-cost, more accessible AI services.
On Tuesday, ByteDance’s Volcano Engine became the latest cloud platform to integrate them. The platform, which owns TikTok, is positioning itself as a cost leader.
Baidu Cloud, which introduced DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-V3 to its services earlier than its rivals, is attracting users with steep price cuts — up to 80% off — along with a two-week free trial.
Meanwhile, Tencent Cloud emphasizes speed, offering one-click deployment that allows developers to integrate the models in minutes. Alibaba Cloud is focusing on accessibility, providing no-code tools to simplify AI model training and deployment. Huawei Cloud, leveraging its AI acceleration technology, claims its DeepSeek-powered services run as efficiently as high-end graphics processing units (GPUs), which are typically far more expensive.
Founded in 2023 in the eastern tech hub of Hangzhou, DeepSeek made global headlines in January with its highly efficient AI models, demonstrating strong performance in mathematics, coding, and natural language reasoning while using fewer resources than its U.S. counterparts.
The model’s rapid adoption rattled global markets, with the Nasdaq dropping 3.1% and wiping over $1 trillion in market value from its listed companies as investors reevaluated U.S. tech dominance. Nvidia, a key AI chip supplier, saw its stock plunge 17%, approximately $600 billion, the largest single-day loss in U.S. market history, while Google and Microsoft also took hits.
Meanwhile, DeepSeek’s popularity surged, surpassing 16 million downloads in 18 days and topping global app charts, according to Sensor Tower and Appfigures.
Unlike models from OpenAI and Google, which require vast computational resources, DeepSeek was trained using significantly fewer GPUs — raising questions about whether massive hardware investments are necessary to achieve high-performance AI.
The new AI platform has triggered widespread debate on Chinese social media, where posts about the model have amassed hundreds of millions of views. On microblogging platform Weibo, hashtags related to DeepSeek’s capabilities and comparisons to ChatGPT have trended, with users debating whether China’s AI industry has finally caught up to the West.
Viral posts highlight its applications in everything from academic research to traditional fortune-telling methods like bazi analysis.
“The declining cost of AI models is positive for cloud service providers across the industry chain,” said Li Jinqing, an analyst at mobile internet consulting company BigData Research.
He added: “Integrating DeepSeek enhances cloud providers’ AI capabilities, attracting more developers and enterprise clients. By offering deployment and application services for DeepSeek, these companies can expand their business scope and create new revenue streams.”
Editor: Apurva.
(Header image: VCG)
