SINGAPORE: Last week, DeepSeek, a technology developed by China, disrupted the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) when it introduced a free assistant that claimed to use less data and was significantly less expensive than AI technology developed in the United States.
A short while later, the US announced a probe into whether the technology used by DeepSeek also utilized restricted AI chips. A Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter said that the US was investigating if the Chinese AI startup had bought semiconductors from tech giant Nvidia through third parties in Singapore to bypass restrictions.
On Feb 1 (Saturday), Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry addressed the matter in a media release, saying the city-state has always upheld the rule of law and reiterating Nvidia’s statement that “there is no reason to believe that DeepSeek obtained any export-controlled products from Singapore.”
Previous to that, however, a post about DeepSeek from Ho Ching, the Former CEO of Temasek Holdings and wife of Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, went viral on Facebook. To date, Mdm Ho’s post has been shared 868 times, though some netizens have wondered why she did not publish the source of the quote. Mdm Ho did make it clear that she was quoting someone else.
The post was written by Morgan Brown, the Vice President for Product and Growth for AI for Dropbox. It was posted on X and LinkedIn on Jan 27.
Many commenters on Mdm Ho’s post noted how clear and simple the explanation was. “Best explanation and summary I’ve read compared to the major international media outlets,” a netizen wrote.
Even a Mothership report appeared to credit Mdm Ho for the post analysing DeepSeek. Other commenters, however, asked the former Temasek CEO where the quote had come from.
“Nice post! may we know whom you’re quoting? (You) should acknowledge the source,” commented one Facebook user. “Mdm, nice sharing. perhaps you may want to quote the source. Most comments here think you wrote this. Thanks,” another chimed in.
Interestingly, like Mdm Ho, many have shared Mr Brown’s post over social media channels, especially on Facebook, without crediting the author.
Mdm Ho has continued to show interest in AI. On Monday (Feb 3), she posted a link to a video on YouTube titled “DeepSeek Just Lost to Alibaba’s New AI!”
“And Alibaba has presented Qwen2.5 as their CNY gift that is supposed to outperform Deepseek, ChatGPT, and Llama (Meta/Facebook),” she wrote in a Facebook post. /TISG
Read also: US investigates if China’s ‘DeepSeek’ sourced Nvidia chips through Singapore intermediaries