I recently posted a quick reaction on LinkedIn about the DeepSeek "bombshell" that rocked the US AI ecosystem, receiving the most likes and comments on any post I've ever made.

Why? Because I said (tech) innovation can happen globally, not just in Silicon Valley. Because I said competition is essential for spurring innovation. Because I said entrepreneurial insight knew ‘it can be done.’

In the AI rollout, "the game is over, winner takes all" theory seemed entrenched. But the DeepSeek lesson speaks loudly and clearly. Innovation just got cheaper, faster, and is found in unexpected places. 

Overnight DeepSeek is the role model of the startup ecosystem. It is demonstrating real-time to every business, idea, or patent that competition is open to anyone with knowledge, a team, and curiosity to solve problems better. 

Indeed, yesterday’s leaders are today’s incumbents. 

The tech titans were all too busy mooting ‘competing with me is "hopeless” to consider that innovation & efficiency is power and can be turned into relevance. With them, we have all learnt a lesson: ‘the small guy can disrupt your business.’ 

Consider this: Sam Altman's words at a recent conference in India will be etched in history. 

When asked by an attendee if a company with $10 million could build a foundational AI model competing with OpenAI, he said, "Hopeless, but they can try."

Well, this week the retort comes from China, costing less than $6 million. Nothing is hopeless except hopelessness itself.

OpenAI, American techies, officials, and countless others questioned DeepSeek's solution, claiming plagiarism or stealing from OpenAI or Meta. 

My response? Oh really, is that your defence? 

Here’s what I see. All innovation is cumulative. Every single discovery that disrupted the world in science, technology, medicine, or other fields was built upon someone else's discovery.

If you read Walter Isaacson's book "The Code Breaker" about Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier's discovery of CRISPR-Cas9, you'll see how they built upon previous research. 

Here's the sequence:

1. Discovery of CRISPR sequences (1987): Yoshizumi Ishino identified CRISPR sequences in E. coli.
2. CRISPR's role in bacterial immunity (2005-2007): Several groups discovered CRISPR's function in bacteria.
3. Identification of Cas9 as a DNA-cutting enzyme (2008): Sylvain Moineau's group found Cas9 responsible for cutting DNA.
4. John van der Oost’s group in the Netherlands confirmed that small RNAs guide Cas proteins to specific DNA targets.

And, as often happens, it all started when Doudna was mesmerised as a child by the book “Double Helix”—The” Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA by James Watson. 

Watson won the Nobel Prize for this discovery along with his partner Maurice Wilkens in 1962,  before Doudna and Charpentier were born and nearly 60 years before they too won the Nobel Prize. 

This “double helix” structure of the DNA discovery by Watson eventually led to the DNA sequencing, which led to the current revolution in biology, chemistry, and medicine. 

So, the Deepseek lesson is, if Discovery—with a capital D—is in China, America, India, the UAE, Jordan, or Palestine … it is all for the benefit of humanity and has nothing to do with nationalism, hegemony, or who got there first. 

Likely, there is always someone before you that made it possible for you to ignite your own inspiration. This is the essence & power of innovation, science, and open source.