DeepSeek has made the world sit up and take notice of Chinese advances in AI, but Elon Musk says that this advantage will be short-lived.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and founder of XAI, yesterday made remarks about China’s artificial intelligence capabilities, particularly regarding the AI company DeepSeek. Musk acknowledged China’s long history of innovation and its current technological prowess, but he asserted that upcoming models from XAI and others will surpass DeepSeek in performance.
“There are a lot of very smart, very motivated engineers in China. So you should expect that China will come up with many great things. And they have come up with many great things. If one looks at the long history of China, also an ancient nation that has invented and developed many things,” Musk said.
“For most of human history, China has been the most powerful nation on earth. I think particularly from the position of people in China, they simply view China’s ascendancy as resuming the normal sort of place in history, which is the most powerful country on earth. And so you can expect that they will do many great things, DeepSeek being one of them,” he added.
“But that is simply a result of the immense amount of talent in China, that is very impressive. But it’s not some sort of complete revolution in AI. No, it is not. XAI and others will soon be releasing models that are better than DeepSeek,” he claimed.
Musk’s comments reflect both an admiration for China’s AI progress and confidence in the competitive advancements of AI models outside of China. He emphasized that while DeepSeek represents an impressive achievement, the AI landscape remains highly dynamic, and upcoming models from XAI and other companies will push the boundaries even further.
This statement aligns with Musk’s broader vision of artificial intelligence as a rapidly evolving field where innovation is constant. Musk had been one of the founders of OpenAI, and has since launched a new effort, xAI, to reach AGI. And as AI companies worldwide race to develop superior models, competition — even from places like China — will continue to drive advancements that will shape the future of AI technology.