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DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

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Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#51

Post by topspin »

culi wrote: post #8
credit_guy wrote: post #3

I think the way to parse the current title "DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]" is that there was a leak that DeepSeek will pause fundraising because they perceive there is a compute gap with the US. I am also guessing that the majority of the people who read this title will think that DeepSeek is pausing this fundraising because some comments they made about the co…

Maybe: "Leaked Deepseek transcripts reveal plan to pause fundraising due to compute gap" I don't know what "compute gap" means in this context though and it's not clear that that's why they plan to pause fundraising or if the title is conflating.

> if the title is conflating

The title is certainly a great conflation. Any seeker of capital would want to regroup after an unfiltered leak of this magnitude, if for no other reason than to secure the forum from future leaks. The comments about the unlikelihood of enormous future profits were at least as consequential with regard to capital investment as anything else that was said.

Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#52

Post by AnnikaL »

culi wrote: post #8
credit_guy wrote: post #3

I think the way to parse the current title "DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]" is that there was a leak that DeepSeek will pause fundraising because they perceive there is a compute gap with the US. I am also guessing that the majority of the people who read this title will think that DeepSeek is pausing this fundraising because some comments they made about the co…

Maybe: "Leaked Deepseek transcripts reveal plan to pause fundraising due to compute gap" I don't know what "compute gap" means in this context though and it's not clear that that's why they plan to pause fundraising or if the title is conflating.

Yeah, wouldn't it makes sense to increase fundraising, so as to acquire more compute to close the gap?

Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#53

Post by noosphr »

nsoonhui wrote: post #21

Here's something I really don't understand: If as alleged Chinese open weight models are catching up with US anyway, and the performance is near US frontier model level but Chinese can do it with a fraction of cost, and eventually AI model will be commodified, wouldn't that means that the billion or even trillion dollars that US labs spend have only diminishing returns and the lead is only temporary? So why Deepseek…

Chinese models most likely are distillations of frontier models with tricks for subpar hardware. If you want to be ahead of the us labs you need to spend billions for pretraining from scratch.

Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#54

Post by carterschonwald »

SyneRyder wrote: post #17
oliculipolicula wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to post this which explains the wording but I thought the transcript was more interesting. Sorry. Maybe mods can help me to put what follows as auxiliary link. I don't know how. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-25/deepseek-... Update: Less-paywalled word-for-word copy it seems at https://fortune.com/2026/07/25/deepseek-liang-wenfeng-backer... https://archive.ph/zpIrG

Most of that is paywalled, but this one paragraph in the Bloomberg article suggests it might be more to do with investors leaking information: "The suspension stemmed in part from Liang’s frustration over online reports about his comments to investors during his first financing deal" The part of the transcript I'd seen floating around online was this part from around 1 hour 26 min: "With the largest models available…

amusingly ive been working on ultra sparse llm inference/ training/ model design because nature loaths a dense graph/matrix and cause i think it shoukd be possible. i actually stood up a 20-25 percent faster than sota causal fast attention kernel yesterday, will be standing up cuda/metal/armv8 kernels too and thats gonna be fun.

i genuinely think these models should be like 0.1 percent sparse for same capabilities we associate with them today, but theres no sane way to do that with extent tools. i built the right core tech for that in 2014 when there wasnt a market, but now there is and the experimentation velocity is wild.

amusingly llms really have a hard time using my simple apis because its not in distribution array programs. but i literally stood up cpu custom memory format and micro kernel for dense causal attention in less than 24-36 hours and outperforms the equivalent fused ggml/llama cpp fast oath by like 20-25 percent

Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#55

Post by hedgehog »

nsoonhui wrote: post #21

Here's something I really don't understand: If as alleged Chinese open weight models are catching up with US anyway, and the performance is near US frontier model level but Chinese can do it with a fraction of cost, and eventually AI model will be commodified, wouldn't that means that the billion or even trillion dollars that US labs spend have only diminishing returns and the lead is only temporary? So why Deepseek…

The whole point the guy is making in the transcript is that they're taking a different strategy from the US labs, one where they focus on smaller models and cost control, and maintain as top priority the work stream that they think will get them to AGI (not every product fad that comes along).

Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#56

Post by axus »

WiSaGaN wrote: post #47
nsoonhui wrote: post #21

Here's something I really don't understand: If as alleged Chinese open weight models are catching up with US anyway, and the performance is near US frontier model level but Chinese can do it with a fraction of cost, and eventually AI model will be commodified, wouldn't that means that the billion or even trillion dollars that US labs spend have only diminishing returns and the lead is only temporary? So why Deepseek…

U.S. policymakers believe that even if the gap is small—like six months to a year—whoever reaches AGI first (whatever that means) could gain such an overwhelming advantage over their perceived adversary that it would effectively kneecap them. (You can look at the kinds of things they mention—cyber, WMDs—to get a sense of what they mean.) Jensen Huang disagrees and has said AI is a marathon.

I don't forsee politicians in either country handing over their power to AIs, ever. Unless nukes are dropped, "the other side" will catch up.

Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#57

Post by tw1984 »

noosphr wrote: post #53
nsoonhui wrote: post #21

Here's something I really don't understand: If as alleged Chinese open weight models are catching up with US anyway, and the performance is near US frontier model level but Chinese can do it with a fraction of cost, and eventually AI model will be commodified, wouldn't that means that the billion or even trillion dollars that US labs spend have only diminishing returns and the lead is only temporary? So why Deepseek…

Chinese models most likely are distillations of frontier models with tricks for subpar hardware. If you want to be ahead of the us labs you need to spend billions for pretraining from scratch.

If that is the case, it means one thing only - US labs don't have moat whatsoever and their expectation to have trillion dollar valuation is just laughable.

Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#58

Post by [deleted] »

SyneRyder wrote: post #17
oliculipolicula wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to post this which explains the wording but I thought the transcript was more interesting. Sorry. Maybe mods can help me to put what follows as auxiliary link. I don't know how. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-25/deepseek-... Update: Less-paywalled word-for-word copy it seems at https://fortune.com/2026/07/25/deepseek-liang-wenfeng-backer... https://archive.ph/zpIrG

Most of that is paywalled, but this one paragraph in the Bloomberg article suggests it might be more to do with investors leaking information: "The suspension stemmed in part from Liang’s frustration over online reports about his comments to investors during his first financing deal" The part of the transcript I'd seen floating around online was this part from around 1 hour 26 min: "With the largest models available…

[deleted]

Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#59

Post by noosphr »

tw1984 wrote: post #57
noosphr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese models most likely are distillations of frontier models with tricks for subpar hardware. If you want to be ahead of the us labs you need to spend billions for pretraining from scratch.

If that is the case, it means one thing only - US labs don't have moat whatsoever and their expectation to have trillion dollar valuation is just laughable.

The moat is the compute.

Re: DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

#60

Post by jstanley »

axus wrote: post #56
WiSaGaN wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U.S. policymakers believe that even if the gap is small—like six months to a year—whoever reaches AGI first (whatever that means) could gain such an overwhelming advantage over their perceived adversary that it would effectively kneecap them. (You can look at the kinds of things they mention—cyber, WMDs—to get a sense of what they mean.) Jensen Huang disagrees and has said AI is a marathon.

I don't forsee politicians in either country handing over their power to AIs, ever. Unless nukes are dropped, "the other side" will catch up.

> I don't forsee politicians in either country handing over their power to AI

They won't see it that way, but also programmers don't see ourselves as having handed over our power to AI, and yet...

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