Could Chinese AI scientists threaten US tech dominance? Study of DeepSeek team gives clues
It’s time to reassess assumptions ‘that the world’s best and brightest naturally want to study and stay in the United States’: paper
China had cultivated a robust domestic AI talent pipeline, as seen in DeepSeek’s research team, whose members were mainly educated and trained within the country, the report said.
While around a quarter of DeepSeek researchers gained experience in the US, most returned to China, resulting in a one-way knowledge transfer that strengthened China’s AI ecosystem, it found.
“These talent patterns represent a fundamental challenge to US technological leadership that export controls and computing investments alone cannot address,” it said.
“DeepSeek is an early-warning indicator about the essential role that human capital – not just hardware or algorithms – plays in geopolitics, and how America’s talent advantage is eroding.”
05:00
Does the arrival of China’s low-cost DeepSeek mean the end of Nvidia’s chip dominance?
The report was written by Amy Zegart, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and associate director at Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centred AI, and Emerson Johnston, a second-year master’s student in international policy at Stanford. It was published on April 21.