The names are as fascinating as the work they do. CgatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Meta – AI models have been growing by leaps and bounds since November 2022. Both in number and in efficiency, while we users have been simply lapping them up. In January 2025, on the other end of the planet from Silicon Valley emerged DeepSeek, an AI model based out of Hangzhou, China and funded by Chinese hedge fund High Flyer. It challenged the traditional dominance of American companies in the arena of high tech, as also indicated a global shift in AI talent.

DeepSeek is a cutting-edge artificial intelligence tool that blends machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing (NLP) to provide an unprecedented level of precision and understanding. By leveraging neural networks that simulate human cognition, DeepSeek can uncover correlations that traditional algorithms might miss. It can sift through vast datasets, identify trends, and even predict future events with exceptional certainty. It ‘seeks’ deep into information repositories and find insights that were previously inaccessible. It is also creating waves because it is claimed to be trained at a fraction of the cost the earlier AI models were.

So where did DeepSeek emerge from? That is as fascinating as the qualities and efficiency of the AI model. DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, an alumnus of a university in Hangzhou. Like other cities Hangzhou wanted its universities to become ‘“innovation ecosystems”. The Zhe Da University, as it is known (from its Chinese name, Zhejiang Daxue) has some 70,000 students and faculty. They live and work across its seven campuses, in blocky buildings overlooking lakes and plum trees. In the past few decades, Zhe Da has become a beacon in research, and an expert at turning its brightest students into successful business leaders. Modelling itself around Stanford, it aims to become a “world-class” university by 2027.

Today Zhe Da produces more scientific papers than any other university, (Leiden ranking) and closely follows Harvard in producing papers deemed to be

in the top 10% of their fields. It prides in allowing its students to dabble in different disciplines and has a ‘mistake tolerant’ approach. The city of Hangzhou too ensures that regulation is an enabler in the growth of the university. Today, Zhe Da has very few overseas students or faculty, and that makes its success truly remarkable. Zhe Da has been helping its scientists commercialise their findings for decades, it set up an institute dedicated to this purpose in 2009.

In India too efforts are on to launch cutting edge AI models. BharatGen is the front runner in this, with many start-ups also working in the arena. The IndiaAI Mission has received 67 proposals, with 20 of them planning to build LLMs. Much like the global shift in AI talent, education power too would be seeing a shift, and we must be a major part of it. Hopefully, much like Zhe Da, a university or research institution will dazzle and its alumni would make us proud in the near future.

Published in Lokmat Times in February 2025