When DeepSeek unveiled its DeepSeek reasoning model in early 2025, it caused a significant drop in the US stock market. The Chinese startup presented a novel approach to training advanced AI that did not depend on acquiring costly, high-end hardware. DeepSeek utilized software solutions to compensate for the premium Nvidia chips it was unable to purchase.
This wasn’t the only strategy DeepSeek employed to create a sense of urgency. The startup launched DeepSeek as an open-source model, enabling anyone around the globe to install the AI on their devices and operate it locally. This posed a challenge to US AI companies that typically lacked open-source counterparts to DeepSeek.
All of a sudden, accessing a premium AI experience through ChatGPT, Gemini, or similar services was no longer necessary. Users had an option that rivaled the best ChatGPT model. It’s worth noting that other open large language models existed prior to DeepSeek and continue to exist today, with Meta being a notable example.
Despite the company’s name, OpenAI, ChatGPT was not available as an open-weight model. Shortly after DeepSeek’s launch, Sam Altman and his team announced plans to release an open version of ChatGPT this summer. However, on Friday, Altman had to reveal a second delay for the open ChatGPT version, stating that the company required additional time for safety testing.
“We are going to take a little more time with our open-weights model, i.e. expect it later this summer but not June,” Altman tweeted on June 11. “Our research team achieved something unexpected and quite remarkable, and we believe it will be very, very worth the wait, but it needs a bit longer.”
Altman did not clarify the “unexpected and quite remarkable” clue regarding the open ChatGPT version, and one shouldn’t get overly enthusiastic about promotional language on X from the head of one of the most influential AI companies globally. Naturally, the open ChatGPT version should indeed be impressive; otherwise, there would be little incentive to release it.
Additionally, I am confident that OpenAI aims to give the open ChatGPT version its unique character, appealing to scientists and developers.
