From a copycat to now challenging the West with its low-cost, disruptive innovation model, China is reshaping the global tech game from artificial intelligence (AI) to electric vehicles.
Interface of DeepSeek application - China's AI that shocked the world earlier this year - Photo: Reuters
When DeepSeek introduced its DeepSeek-R1 model earlier this year, the company stunned the world by showing that it could compete on par with leading chatbots from OpenAI and Google, while using just 2,000 chips instead of 16,000, and costing less than $6 million instead of billions.
The emergence of DeepSeek caused Nvidia shares to fall 17% and wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars in US technology market capitalization.
Strong breakthrough
For many years, the world has viewed the dominance of American giants as a result of the Western model of technological innovation, characterized by high costs and high profits from monopoly. But China has found a completely new direction in its search for technological breakthroughs and has achieved resounding success.
In the biotechnology sector, by applying AI and developing cost-effective clinical trial technology, Chinese biotech companies have accelerated the process of finding breakthroughs in new drug development at lower costs. They do not bring drugs to market themselves but sell the copyrights to large pharmaceutical companies, which helps them finance continued research on new drugs.
With this model, Chinese biotech companies have expanded their position on the world stage, holding nearly 30% of large-value pharmaceutical deals by 2024, and more than one-third of drugs in clinical research worldwide today.
In the electric vehicle sector, while Western driver assistance applications are only available on high-priced cars or require users to pay additional regular service fees like Tesla, Chinese automaker BYD in mid-February made its "God's Eye" driver assistance system standard in all vehicles, even the super-cheap Seagull model, which costs just $9,500.
BYD shares rose 4.5% following the announcement, giving it a market value of $132 billion—more than Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellaris NV combined.
Innovation model
China is seeing technological breakthroughs like AI, drugs, and electric vehicles not as expensive services that monopolies hold and consumers pay for on a regular basis, but as normal commercial goods like electricity, water, or mobile data, that should be cheap and consumed based on need.
From that different perception, China is demonstrating that true technological power comes from the ability to disseminate breakthroughs, not the ability to monopolize them.
As global trade grows and scales rapidly, the winners are not those with the most sophisticated products, they say, but those who can turn technological breakthroughs into mass-market products as quickly as possible.
As a result, China has disrupted traditional Western technology business models and gradually replaced them with an innovation model where manufacturers focus on widespread adoption first and profits second.
This strategy has created a wave of low-cost, high-performance technology from China that is changing global consumer expectations. Users now demand not only advanced technology, but also affordable and accessible technology. This trend is forcing Western companies to rethink their business strategies and pricing models.
China’s success in bringing cutting-edge technology to the mass market has also fueled the rapid growth of its domestic tech ecosystem. Chinese tech startups are increasingly receiving funding, not only from domestic funds but also from international investors who see huge growth potential in this new business model.
As venture capitalist Marc Andreessen wrote on social network X on January 27, calling DeepSeek-R1 "AI's Sputnik moment" to refer to the Soviet Union's 1957 satellite launch that opened the space race with the US during the Cold War, China's breakthroughs in technological innovation models will have an increasingly large impact on the world, bringing not only opportunities but also challenges to countries around the world.
Trump: DeepSeek is a wake-up call for US tech companies
On January 28, US President Donald Trump assessed that the sudden rise of Chinese AI application DeepSeek "should be a wake-up call" for US technology companies.
Mr. Trump also said that DeepSeek's low-cost development model is "a very positive development" for AI in general, because "instead of spending billions of dollars, you spend less and still get the same solutions."
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/trung-quoc-tu-bat-chuoc-den-dan-dau-cuoc-choi-cong-nghe-toan-cau-20250303083708196.htm
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