No, because what this implies is that the Chinese have better labor power in the tech-sector than the US, considering how much more efficient this technology is. Which means that even if US companies adopt these practices, the best workers will still be in China, communicating largely in Chinese, building relationships with other Chinese-speaking people purchasing chinese speaking labor. These relationships are already present. It would be difficult for OpenAI to catch up.
What a stretch. One Chinese model makes a breakthrough in efficiency and suddenly China has all the best people in the world?
What about all the people who invented LLMs and all the necessary hardware here in the US? What about all the models that leapfrog each other in the US every few months?
One breakthrough implies that they had a great idea and implemented it well. It doesn’t imply anything more than that.
Chinese tech companies are also investing into AI. DeepSeek team isn't the only one (and probably the least funded one?) within mainland. This is mostly a challenge to the "American AI is yeas ahead" illusion, and a show that maybe investing only in American companies isn't the smartest method, as others might beat them in their own game.
But the majority of the AI R&D may be in China, with a high barrier for participation for outsiders, leading to an increasing gap. Whether this is so is not obvious.
