While countries around the world including South Korea are imposing sanctions on China’s artificial intelligence (AI) model “DeepSeek,” local governments in China are reportedly scrambling to introduce the new version. WeChat will also be equipped with the new version.
According to the Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post (SCMP) on the 17th, the city of Tianjin, a port city in northern China, recently announced that it has introduced Deepseek.
Founded in 2023 in cooperation with Hebei Province and Huawei, a Chinese IT giant, the Tianjin AI Computing Center became the first facility to fully introduce the DeepSeek model throughout Beijing and surrounding areas by hosting the system. Through this center, local governments will not only use DeepSeek technology, but also local companies will benefit from cost savings.
An official of the center said, “The open-source method, which allows anyone to read and modify, makes DeepSeek cheaper and more flexible for businesses and public services,” adding, “The introduction of DeepSeek has reduced hardware investment costs for training AI applications by 50 percent and reduced the time required by 30 percent.” In fact, a local medical technology company is known to have saved up to 1 million yuan by using this.
Prior to Tianjin, Shenzhen’s Longgang district, known as China’s Silicon Valley, also introduced the DeepSeek model. According to a report released online, it usually took four to five minutes to correct 1,000 Chinese characters, but it was shortened to a few seconds when using DeepSeek.
In addition to this simple document work, DeepSeek is expected to contribute to various public sectors such as searching for missing people and analyzing residents’ feedback. SCMP pointed out that the application of DeepSeek will be further strengthened as the application of the DeepSeek model to the Chinese local government’s “Smart City,” which has already used AI technology such as facial recognition.
The city of Kunshan in Jiangsu Province recently introduced the DeepSeek model into its e-government system. Through the new system, related agencies such as the police and transportation authorities can now utilize the AI model to suit local circumstances. Suqian, another city in Jiangsu Province, said it is working with Jingdong Technology of JD, a Chinese IT giant, to enable the use of DeepSeek through a cloud platform.
In the meantime, WeChat said it will be equipped with DeepSeek and use the contents of the conversation, and news of the introduction of DeepSeek by major Chinese IT companies continues to be reported.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
