Last month, DeepSeek wreaked havoc in the tech world by launching its popular chatbot and artificial intelligence model. While the advancements haven’t been exactly ahead of its Western competition, what spooked investors worldwide is its claims that its model took only $5.6 million in training costs using less advanced, and fewer, computer chips than those employed by tech giants.
These claims have led to concerns about the economics of AI development and competition for big tech players. There have also been suspicions regarding data distillation from Western models, disrupting AI leadership in the Western world.
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Another impact DeepSeek’s emergence has had on the AI world is that it has highlighted several new risks and even challenged market assumptions about how AI will develop.
“The DeepSeek saga is a fascinating inflection point in AI’s trajectory, raising ESG questions that extend beyond energy and market concentration”.
-Peter Huang, co-founder of Openware AI.
“Smaller companies and developers who couldn’t compete before can now get in the game …. It’s like we’re seeing a democratisation of AI development. And the efficiency gains are significant as they’re achieving similar results with much less computing power, which has huge implications for both costs and environmental impact.”
– Camden Woollven, group head of AI product marketing at IT governance and compliance group GRC International.
While all this may be true, one South Korean spy agency has accused the Chinese AI app DeepSeek of “excessively” collecting personal data. Not only does it collect data, but also uses all input data to train itself. According to The National Intelligence Service (NIS), an official notice was sent to government agencies last week advising them to take security precautions over the artificial intelligence app.
“Unlike other generative AI services, it has been confirmed that chat records are transferable as it includes a function to collect keyboard input patterns that can identify individuals and communicate with Chinese companies’ servers such as volceapplog.com”.
-NIS said in a statement issued on Sunday.
For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds.
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9. Blaize Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:BZAI)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: N/A
Blaize Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:BZAI) provides AI-enabled edge computing solutions. On February 10, the company released financial guidance and new product pipeline details that demonstrate growing momentum for the business amid demand for edge AI in the enterprise across numerous verticals. The company projects a revenue of $19 million to $50 million for fiscal year 2025 and a revenue of $105 million to $140 million for fiscal year 2026, as solutions start to get deployed. It has also managed to grow a robust customer base owing to its innovative product pipeline built on full-stack programmable processor architecture suite and software platform for AI processing. The company’s AI-powered edge technology will enable low-latency and cost-efficient AI processing, which will in turn support real-time decision-making in defense systems, smart city management, and automotive applications.
“Blaize is well positioned to capitalize on the accelerating demand for edge AI. Our value proposition and solutions roadmap efficiently addresses the high-performance compute demands for defense, smart city, and automotive customers, which has resulted in a growing customer pipeline.”
“When it comes to edge AI, it’s not a matter of if, but when. The energy efficiency, lower cost, and low latency benefits of edge AI technology are remarkable and bring tremendous benefits across society. We’re excited to work with partners across multiple industries to bring these benefits to people’s everyday lives.”
-Dinakar Munagala, CEO of Blaize.
