By Eduardo Baptista<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The Hangzhou-based firm’s meteoric rise in early \u200c2025, during China’s Spring Festival holiday, upended China’s AI industry, pushing low-cost, open-source models to the forefront of its AI ecosystem.<\/p>\n
This time, DeepSeek will be joined by \u200cseveral other firms in launching new products around China’s longest and busiest holiday period, which officially begins on February 15.<\/p>\n
While the industry was stunned when DeepSeek broke through with a strong AI model despite U.S. export controls restricting \u200baccess 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.<\/p>\n
“The surprise would be if some of these new models end up being underwhelming. I think there are high expectations here,” he said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
ByteDance on Thursday officially unveiled Seedance 2.0, a video generation AI model “capable of producing cinematic blockbusters in seconds”, according to the Chinese \u200cstate-backed Global Times newspaper.<\/p>\n
ByteDance is also expected to roll out upgrades \u2060to its Doubao chatbot, currently China’s most popular AI app with 155.2 million weekly active users, according to QuestMobile.<\/p>\n
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 \u2060industry news site The Information reported last month.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
LOW-COST, OPEN SOURCE NOW THE NORM<\/p>\n
DeepSeek’s initial release in January 2025 \u200btriggered \u200ba global tech selloff and wiped $593 billion from AI chipmaker Nvidia<\/a>‘s market value in a single day and \u200bspurred its Chinese rivals to release upgrades to their own models.<\/p>\n In \u200cthe past two years, DeepSeek’s models have repeatedly undercut competitors’ prices, pushing usage costs significantly below many U.S. offerings.<\/p>\n