BEIJING: Chinese AI developer DeepSeek said it spent US$294,000 on training its R1 model, much lower than figures reported for US rivals, in a paper that is likely to reignite debate over Beijing's place in the race to develop artificial intelligence. The rare update from the Hangzhou-based company - the first estimate it has released of R1's training costs - appeared in a peer-reviewed article in the academic journal Nature published on Wednesday (Sep 17). DeepSeek's release of what it said