A new Chinese AI model, created by the Hangzhou-based startup DeepSeek, has stunned the American AI industry by outperforming some of OpenAI's leading models, displacing ChatGPT at the top of the iOS app store, and usurping Meta as the leading purveyor of so-called open source AI tools. All of which has raised a critical question: despite American sanctions on Beijing's ability to access advanced semiconductors, is China catching up with the U.S. in the global AI race? At a supposed cost of just 6 million to train, DeepSeek's new R1 model, released last week, was able to match the performance on several math and reasoning metrics by OpenAI's o1 model – the outcome of tens of billions of dollars in investment by OpenAI and its patron Microsoft. The Chinese model is also cheaper for users. The upshot: the U.S. tech industry is suddenly faced with a potentially cheaper and more powerful challenger, unnerving investors, who sold off American tech stocks on Monday morning.

A new US State Department-funded study calls for a temporary ban on the creation of advanced AI passed a certain threshold of computational power. The tech, its authors claim, poses an'extinction-level threat to the human species.' The study, commissioned as part of a 250,000 federal contract, also calls for'defining emergency powers' for the American government's executive branch'to respond to dangerous and fast-moving AI-related incidents' -- like'swarm robotics.' Treating high-end computer chips as international contraband, and even monitoring how hardware is used, are just some of the drastic measures the new study calls for. The report joins of a chorus of industry, governmental and academic voices calling for aggressive regulatory attention on the hotly pursued and game-changing, but socially disruptive, potential of artificial intelligence.