#459 – DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters
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The following is a conversation with Dylan Patel and Nathan Lampert. Dylan runs SemiAnalysis, a well-respected research and analysis company that specializes in semiconductors, GPUs, CPUs, and AI hardware in general. Nathan is a research scientist at the Allen Institute for AI and is the author of the amazing blog on AI called Interconnects. They are both highly respected, read, and listened to by the experts, researchers, and engineers in the field of AI. And personally, I'm just a fan of the two of them. So I used the DeepSeek moment that shook the AI world a bit as an opportunity to sit down with them and lay it all out. From DeepSeek, OpenAI, Google, XAI, Meta, Anthropic, to NVIDIA and TSMC, and to US, China, Taiwan relations,
and everything else that is happening at the cutting edge of AI. This conversation is a deep dive into many critical aspects of the AI industry. While it does get super technical, we try to make sure that it's still accessible to folks outside of the AI field by defining terms, stating important concepts explicitly, spelling out acronyms, and in general, always moving across the several layers of abstraction and levels of detail. There is a lot of hype in the media about what AI is and isn't. The purpose of this podcast, in part, is to cut through the hype through the bullshit and the low-resolution analysis, and to discuss in detail how stuff works and what the implications are. Let me also, if I may, comment on the new OpenAI 03 Mini reasoning model, the release of which we were anticipating during the conversation, and it did indeed come out right after.
Its capabilities and costs are on par with our expectations, as we stated. OpenAI O3 Mini is indeed a great model, but it should be stated that DeepSeek R1 has similar performance on benchmarks, is still cheaper, and it reveals its chain of thought reasoning, which O3 Mini does not. It only shows a summary of the reasoning. Plus, R1 is open weight, and O3 Mini is not. By the way, I got a chance to play with O3 Mini, and anecdotal vibe check-wise, I felt that O3 Mini, specifically O3 Mini High, is better than R1. Still, for me personally, I find that Claude Sonnet 3.5 is the best model for programming, except for tricky cases where I will use O1 Pro to brainstorm. Either way, many more better AI models will come, including reasoning models, both from American and Chinese companies. They will continue to shift the cost curve. But the, quote, deep-seek moment is indeed real.
I think it will still be remembered five years from now as a pivotal event in tech history, due in part to the geopolitical implications, but for other reasons too, as we discuss in detail from many perspectives in this conversation. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got InVideo AI for video generation, GitHub for coding, Shopify for selling stuff online, NetSuite for running your business, and AG1 for staying healthy. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to get in touch with me for whatever reason, go to alexhrieman.com contact. And now onto the follow ad reads. No ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This video is brought to you by a new sponsor, but I've known these folks for a long time and perfect fit for this podcast. They're called NVIDIA AI. It's a video generating app that allows you to create full length videos using just text prompts.
It's intuitive, works amazing. It's truly incredible what you can do. I've been playing quite a bit in using it for stock footage. And by the way, they make it super easy for you to switch between actually available stock footage and AI-generated footage. I've been preparing a lot for a conversation with Tim Sweeney, who is the creator of Unreal Engine. And there's 3D worlds, and you get to think about the role of AI in generating those 3D worlds. That's what's coming 5, 10, 20 years from now. In video games and simulations, a fundamental part of our lives will be generated with AI. And I think NVIDIA AI does a masterful job of pushing us in that direction. in the 2D plane of video. Now, I think this is not a tool that replaces human creativity.
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