On November 30, 2022, OpenAI publicly released ChatGPT as a free “research preview.” Within 5 days of its launch, ChatGPT reached one million users, a record for the fastest user acquisition in digital history. Since then it has grown dramatically and has reached hundreds of millions of weekly users. Since its launch, many companies have attempted to replicate its success. None have come close, however recently a report made by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) shows that the AI race is no longer just a two-way race between Google and OpenAI.

In a new study by the institute, Google and OpenAI are still at the top but China’s DeepSeek’s new model R1, is ranked closest to the top, close behind OpenAI and Google. Director of research at HAI, Vanessa Parli, said “It creates an exciting space. It’s good that these models are not all developed by five guys in Silicon Valley.” The current environment that AI technology is surrounded by, is only beneficial for the release of new and improved technology. However, it does raise the question that the race for the perfect AI is eerily similar to the race to build a bomb. Of course, there are obvious disparities between the two races, however, it is something to think about.

When China’s DeepSeek-R1 arrived in January, the US tech industries and stock market were heavily affected. This was due to the company that created DeepSeek claiming that they used only a small percentage of money and computational resources that were used by US companies. However, many industry analysts like SemiAnalysis estimated that the reported cost of $5.6 million was fabricated and instead cost upwards of 1.6 billion dollars. The report also shows that powerful models of AI technology have recently emerged in places like the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, which shows that AI technology is becoming increasingly globalized.

According to the report, the amount of AI technology has increased, and so has the funding for AI. In 2024 alone, private investment in AI technology eclipsed 151 billion dollars. With the race heating up, there have been a lot of positives that have stemmed from the competition. According to the report, academic research is improving in quality, which correlates to the amount of money invested in the technology.