TCS | Deep impact: Dean Furman on the implications of China's DeepSeek

Loading player...
China’s DeepSeek rocked US technology stocks last month after the company appeared to have developed an artificial intelligence model akin to OpenAI’s most advanced ChatGPT models at a tiny fraction of the cost.
Stocks like Nvidia, Google and Microsoft cratered on the news as it raised serious questions about whether the tens of billions – if not hundreds of billions of dollars – that Big Tech is pouring into AI infrastructure makes sense and whether China is further ahead than many people had realised.
To unpack the potential implications of DeepSeek and the rise of Chinese AI models, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod spoke to South African AI expert and keynote speaker Dean Furman to unpack the subject is greater detail – including what it could mean in the South African context.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Furman discusses:
• Whether China – and DeepSeek specifically – just upended the economics of AI;
• Whether American Big Tech firms should be worried;
• DeepSeek’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to AI tools from the likes of Google, Meta Platforms and OpenAI;
• Chinese government censorship of DeepSeek’s results and whether this matters to users outside China;
• The significance of DeepSeek’s models being released using an open-source licence and what this means for the future development of AI; and
• How far the world is from AGI, or artificial general intelligence.
It’s a fascinating discussion – be sure not to miss it!
7 Feb 2025 English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

Meet the CIO | Chris Shortt on what a supermarket becomes

Chris Shortt, chief technology officer at Shoprite Group, says the work of the next five years is meeting the customer at their point of need, wherever that is – and that this does not mean the end of the store. Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to…
9 Sep 43 min

Watts & Wheels | Why electric trucks are beating electric cars to South Africa

South Africa has still not crossed 1% of new vehicle sales going to electric vehicles, well short of the 5% mark at which adoption typically accelerates, The Electric Mission executive director Hiten Parmar told TechCentral’s Watts & Wheels with Wills. Parmar, who heads the non-profit advocacy body and co-founded the…
3 Sep 31 min

Winstone Jordaan on building a national EV charging network

Winstone Jordaan was building charging infrastructure before South Africa had electric cars to plug into it. GridCars began developing its backend platform in 2010. The first EVs arrived in 2013. In this episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, the GridCars founder tells William Kelly why the hardware was never…
2 Sep 22 min

Watts & Wheels S1E8: ‘Tesla lands in Africa, just not here’

Episode 8 of Watts & Wheels – TechCentral’s electric motoring show – opens with William Kelly on his soapbox, clipboard in hand, and a simple demand: keep left, pass right. Too many South African drivers, he argues, treat the left indicator as an invitation to be overtaken rather than a…
24 Aug 1 hr 11 min