Sometimes “The Cost of AI” rests in the hands of political players.
International politics can throw disruptive curves into companies’ plans and ambitions to leverage AI to remain competitive. The extent of such disruptions — or the negotiations to avoid them — could vary in influence based on how organizations respond.
Attempts by the United States to limit China’s access to chips produced in Asia that support AI made the arrival of DeepSeek, a seemingly lower-cost alternative to OpenAI, feel like a gamechanger. It rattled some market assumptions about pricier hardware and pointed to the potential to use alternative sources of technology to drive AI plans forward.
Could global needs for AI create “strange bedfellows” comparable to agreements seen in the pursuit of fossil fuels? Does a path forward exist for companies stymied by politics that risk narrowing access to international resources for AI technology?
Ian Cohen, CEO of Lokker; Ted Krantz, CEO of Interos; Sahil Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Enkrypt AI; and David Brauchler, technical director and head of AI and ML security for NCC Group, discussed those and other questions in this episode of DOS Won’t Hunt.
Has DeepSeek changed the game in terms of materials and AI needs? Or does DeepSeek still need to be proven out before the rules of the game are rewritten?
Is there any sense of communication between public and private sectors to try to mitigate potential issues with international access to materials and technology for AI?
Does everyone need the “top tier” chips and materials to support their AI efforts? Are there AI needs/functions that are NOT beholden to access to the harder to obtain chips, hardware?