DeepSeek hasn't proven anything except what they say. You're inherently trusting a company's statements over others. When an independent third party corroborates the numbers then we know for sure. Until then, every company is just selling a story for investors and users.
DeepSeek has released their weights so multiple companies can tell you if they're profitable, whereas the ones with closed weights, you will never know, even if they go public, they dont have to publish the actual margin.
I'm not aware of Chinese law, but I suspect that lying to the public or investors carries risks.
As a now former Chinese investor, the numbers reported in China are almost entirely fictional. They are whatever the local prefect or senior leaders wants them to be. Right now they seek to imply to the West that they are competitive, so the numbers reported reflect that. Almost no Chinese company permits independent audit of any of their finances.
It’s a rabbit hole but if you have some time it’s fascinating to look into the sentiment of investing in China vs the rest of the world. Because the numbers are so unreliable, investing is considered about the same as gambling in China. You’re more likely to lose a lot of money than win, and there is no way to accurately predict strong from weak companies based on their reported financials. Occasionally senior leaders will sentence the leader of very large failed company to death to attempt to maintain confidence, but it’s not working. This is one of the reasons for the housing bubble. There just aren’t stable investing opportunities in China.
The people running AI companies are famous for being risk averse