How DeepSeek leveraged Qwen and Llama to build its model in $5M

How DeepSeek leveraged Qwen and Llama to build its model in $5M

From The AI Native Dev - from Copilot today to AI Native Software Development tomorrow by Tessl

April 7, 2026 · 40 min · Season 1 · Episode 100

About this episode

In this episode, Simon Maple interviews Amanda Brock about the implications of open source in AI and how DeepSeek built a model for significantly less than expected.

Meta’s Llama might not actually be open source AI, and the developers building on it have no idea. In this episode of AI Native Dev, Simon Maple sits down with Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK, to break down what open source actually means in the age of AI and why most of the industry is getting it wrong. They get into: what open washing is and why it is happening across major models right nowhow DeepSeek built a frontier model for $5 million instead of $100 millionwhy Chinese developers are alr...

People in this episode

Host: Simon Maple

Guest: Amanda Brock

Topics covered

  • open source AI
  • AI development
  • DeepSeek
  • Llama
  • Qwen
  • open washing
  • AI models

Keywords

  • open source
  • AI
  • DeepSeek
  • Llama
  • Qwen
  • open washing
  • AI models
  • Amanda Brock
  • Simon Maple

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: OpenUK, DeepSeek

Products: Llama, Qwen

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