In the mid-15th century, Gutenberg's movable type press marked the demise of church-monopolized parchment manuscripts. Centuries later, OpenAI erected the "knowledge monastery" of the digital age with GPT-4, a feat that demanded exorbitant training costs. Yet, this technological stronghold of "brute-force computing + closed-source monopoly" was unexpectedly breached by a synergy of "open source + inclusivity + cognition" orchestrated by a 139-person team nestled beside Hangzhou's Xixi Wetland, heralding a new dawn of technological equity for global developers.

DeepSeek-R1's emergence has transformed McKinsey's predicted $13 trillion AI economic feast from an exclusive gathering for tech giants into a communal banquet accessible to all. The key to this feast is "AI Commercialization."

This article delves into the technical fog to unveil how DeepSeek has overcome the triple challenges of AI commercialization.

01. First Breakthrough: Open Source Strategy Redraws Geopolitical Boundaries

DeepSeek's first breakthrough in AI commercialization lies in its open source strategy. While both open and closed source models have their merits, open source edges out closed source in terms of commercialization speed. Closed-source large models, often shrouded in stringent intellectual property protections, can hinder startups from accessing cutting-edge technologies and resources, forcing them to pay steep patent licensing fees to OpenAI, which in turn slows down innovation and competitiveness.

In the context of AI commercialization, if we liken large AI models to an industrial revolution, closed source represents the era when steam engines were locked within factories, whereas open source symbolizes the disruptive moment when blueprints are made public, igniting sparks of innovation everywhere. In 2025, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek utilized an open-source strategy to dismantle the wall of technological monopoly, dramatically accelerating the global AI commercialization process.

Moreover, this open-source strategy constitutes a subtle AI geopolitical maneuver. As the United States seeks to monopolize the computing power ecosystem through the CUDA architecture, DeepSeek's open-source community is nurturing an operator library compatible with domestic chips, transforming large model development from a heavy industry into modular assembly.

From a commercial standpoint, open source is also a brilliant business strategy. DeepSeek's open-source ecosystem is poised to spawn the world's first AI application ecosystem. As developers build diverse applications—such as intelligent customer service, medical image diagnosis, and text creation—on its framework, the dominance of its underlying architecture quietly grows. This "rural surrounding the city" approach mirrors irresistible "open strategies" throughout history.

Thus, DeepSeek's story reveals a harsh truth: In the latter half of the AI race, open source is the superior form of closed source. It trades technological openness for ecological hegemony and sacrifices short-term profits for long-term standard-setting power. As global developers contribute tirelessly, the true strength of this open strategy becomes evident—those who control the "technological high seas" of open source will become the Panama Canal that all ships must navigate in the vast ocean of AI commercialization.

02. Second Breakthrough: Inclusivity Storm Reshapes the Industrial Landscape

DeepSeek's second breakthrough in AI commercialization is its inclusivity from a cost-efficiency perspective. "Large models are unaffordable, and small models haven't proven profitable," laments an industry insider regarding the investment conundrum in large models.

Large models are notoriously expensive, with training costs in the tens of millions, making them a game for the few. Coupled with the waning golden age of USD funds, venture capital has become increasingly cautious. Perhaps this explains why the large model boom has struggled to ignite the primary market.

DeepSeek has altered this landscape. By reducing large model training costs by two orders of magnitude, the industry witnessed a rare price death cross—the marginal returns of closed-source models began to lag behind the iteration speed of open-source models. This explains why OpenAI, once "haughty," announced the opening of the ChatGPT search function to all users without registration and later updated the o3-mini's chain of thought for both free and paid users. These actions signify that in the face of the inclusivity wave, giants must abandon their ivory towers and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

Historically, large model development followed two curves: the Scaling curve, where model size continuously expands, and the cost reduction curve. European and American large model vendors, with ample budgets, were lax in cost considerations during model development, leaving ample room for cost reduction post-release. Previously, ChatGPT and GPT-4's cost reduction was dominated by European and American vendors, but this round is led by Chinese vendors, with future innovations expected to continue spearheading the cost reduction curve.

OpenAI's shift from paid to free also confirms that in front of the Tower of Babel built by human collective wisdom, any cracks in the technological utopia will be washed away by the flood of an open ecosystem.

03. Third Breakthrough: Cognitive Revolution Transforms Production Relations

DeepSeek's third breakthrough in AI commercialization lies in enhancing users' cognition of AI. Besides closed source and costs, the degree to which humans accept and utilize AI also poses challenges to large AI model commercialization.

At the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Wang Jian, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Director of Zhejiang Lab, and Founder of Alibaba Cloud, stated, "The human factor is easily overlooked. When we say AI will impact every department and serve as a revolutionary force, it's challenging for everyone in large enterprises to embrace AI. The difference between small and large enterprises is that large enterprises view AI as a tool revolution, while small enterprises see it as a revolutionary tool."

This shift in mindset is not only challenging for companies and industries but also for each of us individually.

Whether it's ChatGPT's large language model or the reasoning model represented by DeepSeek-R1, both possess a high cognitive threshold. For ordinary people to understand and engage with these high-ground innovations from large corporate laboratories, they must navigate clickbait headlines that "punch Silicon Valley and kick Wall Street" and penetrate the information fog of AIGC fabrications to find authentic, rational, and objective information sources as anchors into the technological world.

Retrospectively examining DeepSeek's path to breaking out of its circle, we observe a unique aspect: technical discussions about DeepSeek have achieved a groundbreaking breakthrough in quality, breadth, and depth, thereby driving the process of technological inclusivity widely used by the public, paving the way for DeepSeek to transcend its circle and open up a path for AI commercialization.

With DeepSeek's growing popularity and breakthrough, many ordinary people are beginning to genuinely understand and utilize AI. This truly embodies the saying, "The swallows that once flew over the courtyards of the wealthy and noble now fly into the homes of common people."

04. Epilogue: Embracing AI Transformation, the World as a Shared Future Community

Looking back from the threshold of 2025, DeepSeek brings not only technological breakthroughs but also choices in civilization's evolution. While the United States persists in using computing power hegemony to uphold the digital colonial system, the "open source - inclusivity - cognition" triangular model pioneered by Chinese AI enterprises is unlocking the door to a new technological civilization.

Pioneers like DeepSeek are using code to build the steps to this utopia, and the direction in which these steps extend echoes the ancient wisdom of the Chinese civilization, "All under heaven is for the public." The ultimate vision of this transformation may be a scenario where, when technological inclusivity eliminates scarcity, humans will truly revel in the benefits of AI.

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