Today, we’re bringing you a bonus episode zeroing in on DeepSeek, the Chinese AI lab that’s recently taken over the news and the app stores, beating out OpenAI's ChatGPT. Max Zeff is talking about it all with Ion Stoica, Professor of Computer Science Division at UC Berkeley and the cofounder and executive chairman of software startup Databricks.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

Why Stoica believes the future of AI lies in "doubling down on open source."
Microsoft's decision to host DeepSeek on Azure.
What the U.S. can do to foster accelerated innovation – with a look back at SB-1047 and a look ahead to 2025.
The controversy surrounding claims that DeepSeek used OpenAI’s models to train its own.

Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday.

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here.

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.

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DeepSeek: separating fact from hype