#459 – DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters

Dylan Patel is the founder of SemiAnalysis, a research & analysis company specializing in semiconductors, GPUs, CPUs, and AI hardware. Nathan Lambert is a research scientist at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) and the author of a blog on AI called Interconnects.

Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep459-sc

See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc.

Transcript:

lexfridman.com/deepseek-dylan-patel-nathan-lam…

CONTACT LEX:

Feedback – give feedback to Lex: lexfridman.com/survey

AMA – submit questions, videos or call-in: lexfridman.com/ama

Hiring – join our team: lexfridman.com/hiring

Other – other ways to get in touch: lexfridman.com/contact

EPISODE LINKS:

Dylan’s X: x.com/dylan522p

SemiAnalysis: semianalysis.com

Nathan’s X: x.com/natolambert

Nathan’s Blog: interconnects.ai

Nathan’s Podcast: interconnects.ai/podcast

Nathan’s Website: natolambert.com

Nathan’s YouTube: youtube.com/@natolambert

Nathan’s Book: rlhfbook.com

SPONSORS:

To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts:

Invideo AI: AI video generator.

Go to invideo.io/i/lexpod (lexfridman.com/s/invideoai-ep459-sc)

GitHub: Developer platform and AI code editor.

Go to gh.io/copilot (lexfridman.com/s/github-ep459-sc)

Shopify: Sell stuff online.

Go to shopify.com/lex (lexfridman.com/s/shopify-ep459-sc)

NetSuite: Business management software.

Go to netsuite.com/lex (lexfridman.com/s/netsuite-ep459-sc)

AG1: All-in-one daily nutrition drinks.

Go to drinkag1.com/lex (lexfridman.com/s/ag1-ep459-sc)

OUTLINE:

(00:00) – Introduction

(13:28) – DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-V3

(35:02) – Low cost of training

(1:01:19) – DeepSeek compute cluster

(1:08:52) – Export controls on GPUs to China

(1:19:10) – AGI timeline

(1:28:35) – China’s manufacturing capacity

(1:36:30) – Cold war with China

(1:41:00) – TSMC and Taiwan

(2:04:38) – Best GPUs for AI

(2:19:30) – Why DeepSeek is so cheap

(2:32:49) – Espionage

(2:41:52) – Censorship

(2:54:46) – Andrej Karpathy and magic of RL

(3:05:17) – OpenAI o3-mini vs DeepSeek r1

(3:24:25) – NVIDIA

(3:28:53) – GPU smuggling

(3:35:30) – DeepSeek training on OpenAI data

(3:45:59) – AI megaclusters

(4:21:21) – Who wins the race to AGI?

(4:31:34) – AI agents

(4:40:16) – Programming and AI

(4:47:43) – Open source

(4:56:55) – Stargate

(5:04:24) – Future of AI