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Fareed Zakaria
January 31, 2025
This week, the Chinese firm DeepSeek’s AI breakthrough sent shivers through the US tech community. Indeed, it has prompted comparisons to Sputnik, the Soviet-launched satellite that caused a panic about USSR superiority.
DeepSeek’s AI advancement “is in some ways a much bigger deal than Sputnik,” Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. Sputnik was a milestone in the space race, but at the time, “[f]ew thought the Soviet economy in general was more technologically advanced than America’s,” Fareed writes.
AI could be much more significant, as it has the potential for pervasive applications in business, health, the military and more. As the race for global AI superiority unfolds, the US has sought to block China from acquiring the most advanced microchips that power AI. DeepSeek’s new AI chatbot raises questions as to whether the US can successfully stunt China’s
AI development, Fareed notes.
It’s also worth thinking about the downsides of that approach, Fareed argues: “If technology bans and export controls at best keep China behind a year—maybe just several months—is that gain worth the cost? That cost is Chinese retaliation, limiting the United States’ access to key materials that it needs for high technology. More important, a decoupled global economy also creates a closed ecosystem in which U.S. technology companies will not face competition from the best. Is Tesla going to innovate at the highest level if it is not facing its strongest Chinese rival?”