On 11 February, it was reported that the share prices of BYD grew over 4.5% at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX). Its value has grown 20% since the beginning of the year, and its market value reached 132 billion USD, more than Ford, GM and Stellantis combined. In comparison, Tesla has dropped 31% since December and plummeted 6% on 11 February. Many pundits believe this is connected to BYD and DeepSeek partnership, the latest AI disruptor, to develop smart driving technologies.
However, integrating DeepSeek is not limited to BYD. Many car builders, including Geely, Zeekr, Voyah and even Hongqi, announced they were incorporating the AI model into their cars. SAIC-GM also announced that it had become the first China-foreign joint venture automaker to integrate DeepSeek into its intelligent cabin. The deployment will cover Cadillac and Buick-branded models.
Meanwhile, tech-centric makers such as Xiaomi, Li Auto, NIO and Huawei’s Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA) are yet to deploy the model. Smartphone makers such as Honor, OPPO, Vivo and ZTE have started deploying DeepSeek, but Xiaomi and Apple continue to hold out. In fact, Apple just announced that it would be developing an AI model for iPhones in China with Alibaba on 11 February, causing Alibaba’s share prices to jump 6% the next day.
Some believe that the current rush to deployment seems like a publicity stunt stemming from a fear of missing out. Most of the brands did integrate the model deep into their system, either as an assistant in the cars’ operating system or “distilling” the open-source model into a smaller version that can operate offline. But still, DeepSeek is just an upgrade to the existing assistant chatbot for most intents and purposes. The real challenge is how to integrate AI into self- or assisted driving.
