Indeed, see https://semianalysis.com/2025/01/31/deepseek-debates/ for a well researched article about the actual cost.
This is in the Businessweek story
Readit NewsAustinCarrBW commented on DeepSeek’s founder is threatening US dominance in AI race bloomberg.com/news/featur... · Posted by u/blumpy22
AustinCarrBW commented on DeepSeek’s founder is threatening US dominance in AI race bloomberg.com/news/featur... · Posted by u/blumpy22
Still parroting the same uninformed takes from January
>DeepSeek claimed to have built its base model for about 5% of the estimated cost of GPT-4
The article specifically says "it's likely this sum referred only to the final training run—a data-refinement process that transforms a model’s previous prototypes into a complete product—but many people perceived it as an insanely low budget for the entire project." The article also delves into the SemiAnalysis report, as well as denials from ex-DeepSeek employees.
[edit] also they seem to be saying r1 is a base model, which it is not. Very sloppy.