What Chinese DeepSeek AI Means for Donald Trump's Stargate Plans

DeepSeek poses serious questions to the future of President Donald Trump's approach to artificial intelligence (AI), experts have told Newsweek.

The launch of the Chinese AI chatbot came just a few days after Trump announced Stargate, a $500 billion project designed to preserve the U.S.'s control over the AI industry.

Newsweek contacted the White House and DeepSeek for comment via email.

Why It Matters

Stargate was meant to maintain U.S. dominance over artificial intelligence, spending a $500 billion investment over four years and creating thousands of jobs in the industry. However, DeepSeek's launch just a few days later immediately threatened that influence, meaning Trump's approach to AI over the next few months will be critical in deciding how the U.S. will respond to China's advances.

What To Know

The Stargate plan was designed to capitalize on an already-strong U.S. position in AI, uniting the biggest American names in the industry, like SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and MGX.

However, Stargate may now be playing on the defensive after DeepSeek threw ChatGPT's status as the top chatbot into question by producing similar results with a fraction of the infrastructure.

Alexandra Mousavizadeh, CEO of Evident and creator of the Global AI Index, outlined Trump's options. "You can continue to try and contain access to chips and close the walls off. While you're doing that, you're doubling down on investment into data infrastructure, supporting the development of AI in the U.S. and being first in that race," she told Newsweek.

"Or you open up completely and you say, 'Look, it's to the benefit of all that everyone has access to everything, because the collaboration between Europe, the U.S. and China in the past has been what has led to the ability to get to where we are today.'

"So closing off will probably slow down overall global development in my view. My understanding is that he [Trump] definitely would lean towards the former. He's trying to close off access to chips in China and go full throttle on AI development, which is done with Stargate. He's got it very much top of the agenda in this White House."

Mousavizadeh also highlighted the nomination of Michael Kratsios as the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, along with adviser Lynne Parker, as a further sign that Trump was taking AI strategy seriously.

Jasmine Sayyari, creator of the Chanci AI career platform, said that Trump's potential acceleration of AI development could have big ramifications for the wider job market.

"During the recent Davos conference, a new term was introduced: FOBO; Fear Of Becoming Obsolete—individuals having this anxiety [that] their skills and their roles become redundant because of artificial intelligence," Sayyari said.

"There are a lot of other players in the background, like the new projects that were introduced by President Trump. It's going to make AI development even more complex. It's removing barriers between the American leadership and artificial intelligence development.

"And DeepSeek was recently introduced to the market, but it's more cost effective. There's more misinformation and concerns that these policies can cause social unrest, which is why I think we shouldn't just focus on the business part—we should focus on using AI for retraining."

What People Are Saying

Trump said at the announcement of Stargate: "Together, these world-leading technology giants are announcing the formation of Stargate, so put that name down in your books, a new American company that will invest in AI infrastructure. This is a resounding vote of confidence in America's potential. It will ensure the future of AI technology and keep it in this country."

In a statement on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described DeepSeek as "an impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price.

"We will obviously deliver much better models and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor! We will pull up some releases. But mostly we are excited to continue to execute on our research road map and believe more compute is more important now than ever before to succeed at our mission. The world is going to want to use a LOT of ai, and really be quite amazed by the next gen models coming."

What Happens Next

The launch of DeepSeek will continue to have lasting ramifications for the U.S. artificial intelligence industry, with some of the largest companies in the space suffering on the stock market.

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