DeepSeek, Moonshot and OpenAI race to raise billions: The global fight for AI capital

Let's talk about DeepSeek, right? So, per Bloomberg, uh they're getting new money close to securing 12 billion in new funding from partners like uh investors like CL and Tencent. Uh setting up the stage for the the upcoming IPO, right? Potentially. Uh this is the company behind V4 Flash, right? One of the one of these like not fully open source or openweight models, but but near there. Uh >> it's behind the Deepseek moment back last year. >> Well, that Moonshot was that was that last year ago, >> dude. Well, Moonshot was Kimmy and but before that we had the deepseek moment, >> right? But but but >> continuing on with this Moonshot also potentially, right? Um seeing here they might actually raise a new round with $50 billion valuation, right? Uh eyeing a Q1 IPO in Hong Kong again per Bloomberg. >> They had Kimmy K3 come out in July and that caused a lot of concernation. Yeah. Yeah. So that was the most recent spook AI spook was was this. This is the Kimmy K3 is the one that's the the purely kind of open weight open source model that everyone's freaked out about. So yeah, a lot of new money coming in here into the Chinese models. Nothing >> nothing crazy like the money you're seeing going into open AI and going into anthropic, but still decent cash into these Chinese models and you know it speaks to kind of you know where this industry is headed. Is it is it going to be headed towards these Chinese models? Mhm. >> Um, one small detail in that Moonshot AI story is they're considering their Hong Kong IPO as you mentioned in the beginning of next year and they're considering raising 5 billion which considering that valuations >> pretty small >> right so that anyway that's just a side note but all of this is happening at the same time that OpenAI is doing a new funding round reportedly also um raising some money from the UAE um uh MJX MGX which is based in Abu Dhabi that they would anchor a $30 billion uh round of financing. >> Also, Black Rockck potentially in discussions. >> That's right. And so, and this is as OpenAI, as we know, has delayed its IPO, but doesn't seem to be having trouble raising money in the private market. But it but it also speaks to more broadly the sort of firepower, if you will, of as you talked about yesterday, the sort of Chinese models versus the American models and what do each of them have at their disposal. As part of this report as well, Deep Seek, it talked about DeepSeek um building out its data centers with Huawei chips, right? You know, kind of gigantic data center complexes that will power its models. >> Uhhuh. A huge potential site in Inner Mongolia. >> Yeah. I mean, how crazy is that? Like this massive 160,000 >> they have nimi problems in Inner Mongolia. >> I mean, in fairness, where has China been building data centers? out in the Xing Jang region in western China which has historically been a site of a lot of repression but also open land. Inner Mongolia also has a ton of open grassland. >> Yeah. I mean it to me >> what >> what's so funny? I never fail to be amazed by the random random facts that reside in Jake's head that he knows where the open grassland is in China and inner Mongolia is just >> I mean he's I like maps. I like he's seen some of the historical movies with Gangaskhan running across. >> I used I used to cover China. I like I like maps. >> It's can't you picture Genghaskhan running with across the field >> data centers? But let's on a on a more serious note >> on a more serious note, step back for a second. >> Open AAI is seeking at least $30 billion in this round. Deepseek's looking for 12 billion. Moonshot's raising money. We're going to get into this later, but Google's spending a billion dollars on power with um Constellation. Step back. That's the competition for capital we keep talking about. That's all the capital getting sucked up. And if you're trying to issue into that, you're going to struggle. Well, look at JP Morgan offering an 11% yield on a $5 billion portfolio of loans for Volta. And then if you're the Treasury, you're trying to uh auction treasuries off this week. That's going to be tough to issue into this market where there's so much money going elsewhere. >> On the one hand, yes, that is a problem for Treasury. On the other hand, um you know, the tightening of financial conditions is exactly what the Fed is aiming for, right? So, you know, if there is slightly less availability of capital, the Fed in theory wants that to help um bring inflation down. >> But what we've said before and seen is that the Fed and the Treasury >> Yes. Not always, especially right