PARIS — Deepseek’s AI model “is probably the best work” out of China, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind said on Sunday, but added that the company didn’t show any new scientific advances.

Last month, China’s Deepseek released a research paper that rattled global markets after claiming its AI model was trained at a fraction of the cost of leading AI players and on less-advanced Nvidia chips.

Deepseek’s announcement sparked an aggressive stock sell-off and sparked considerable debate over whether large tech firms are spending too much on AI infrastructure.

Hassabis praised Deepseek’s model as “an impressive piece of work.”

“I think its probably the best work I’ve seen come out of China,” Hassabis said at a Google-hosted event in Paris ahead of the AI Action Summit that is being hosted by the city.

The DeepMind CEO said the AI model shows that Deepseek can do “extremely good engineering” and that it “changes things on a geopolitical scale.”

However, from a technology point of view, Hassabis said it was not a big change.

“Despite the hype, there’s no actual new scientific advance … it’s using known techniques [in AI],” he said, adding that the hype around Deepseek has been “exaggerated a little bit.”

The DeepMind CEO said that the company’s Gemini 2.0 Flash models, which Google this week released to everyone, are more efficient than DeepMind’s model.

Deepseek’s claims around its low cost and the chips it uses have been questioned by experts, who think the cost of development for the Chinese firm’s models is higher.

Still, many in the industry have also flagged multiple risks associated with AGI. One of the biggest concerns is that humans will lose control of the systems they created, a view shared by prominent AI scientists Max Tegmark and Yoshua Bengio, who recently shared their concerns with CNBC over this form of AI.

Anduril, the defense-tech startup founded by Palmer Luckey, has signed a term sheet to raise capital at a $28 billion valuation, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company is planning to raise up to $2.5 billion in the round, said the people who asked not to be named because the details are confidential. The latest funding would double Anduril’s valuation from August.

Anduril, the three-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company that ranked No. 2 in 2024, aims to disrupt traditional defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman by developing its own products and selling them to clients, in contrast to the traditional military process of contracting and then building.

An Anduril spokesperson declined to comment.

Luckey, who sold virtual reality company Oculus to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, has been a public supporter of Donald Trump since long before the president’s return to the White House.

“I’ve been on the tech-for-Trump train for longer than just about anyone,” Luckey, who started the company in 2017, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime” on Nov. 6, right after Trump’s election victory. “The idea that we need to be the strongest military in the world is really non-partisan.”

In December, Anduril announced a partnership with artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, allowing the defense tech company to deploy advanced AI systems for “national security missions.”

It’s part of a broader and controversial trend of AI companies walking back bans on military use of their products and entering into partnerships with defense companies and the U.S. Department of Defense. In December, Anthropic and Palantir announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services to “provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies access” to Anthropic’s AI models.

While Anduril is still privately held, Palantir, which sells software and services to defense agencies, is publicly traded and has been one of the best performers on the stock market in the past year, jumping 370% over that stretch, lifting its market cap past $250 billion. The company reported in its latest earnings report this week that government revenue jumped 45% from a year earlier to $343 million.

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund is leading the latest Anduril financing, with a $1 billion commitment, sources said, the largest check ever for the firm. Thiel, who was a major Trump supporter in the 2016 campaign, is one of Palantir’s co-founders. Trae Stephens, a partner at Founders Fund, is an Anduril co-founder.

Anduril’s revenue in 2024 doubled to about $1 billion and annual contract value reached $1.5 billion, the people said.

In 2023, Anduril launched several new drones that rely on its Lattice AI-powered command and control software used by the U.S. military and allies to direct human-assisted robotics systems to perform complex missions. 

WATCH: Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey talks what a Trump White House means for defense tech

Hims & Hers is facing scrutiny from lawmakers over what they claim is a “misleading” advertisement for its weight loss offerings that’s slated to run during the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) wrote a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday expressing concerns over an “upcoming advertisement” that “risks misleading patients by omitting any safety or side effect information when promoting a specific type of weight loss medication.”

The Hims & Hers ad, which the company released online in late January, is called “Sick of the System” and sharply criticizes the $160 billion dollar weight loss industry. It shows visuals of existing weight loss medications known as GLP-1s, including injection pens that look like Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic.

The ad claims those drugs are “priced for profits, not patients,” and points to Hims & Hers’ weight loss medications as “affordable” and “doctor-trusted” alternatives.

“We are complying with existing law and are happy to continue working with Congress and the new Administration to fix the broken health system and ensure that patients have choices for quality, safe, and affordable healthcare,” a Hims & Hers spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.

The senators do not mention Hims & Hers by name in their letter, but they do reference some of the visuals in the ad, including “imagery of an injection pen with distinctive characteristics reflective of an existing brand-name medication.”

“Nowhere in this promotion is there any side effect disclosure, risk, or safety information as would be typically required in a pharmaceutical advertisement,” the senators wrote. “Further, for only three seconds during the minute-long commercial does the screen flash in small, barely legible font, that these products are not FDA-approved.”

Hims & Hers began offering compounded semaglutide through its platform in May after launching a new weight loss program in late 2023. Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, which can each cost around $1,000 a month without insurance.

Shares of Hims & Hers jumped over 170% last year, thanks to soaring demand for GLP-1s. They rose another 8% on Friday, lifting the company’s market cap to about $9.5 billion.

Compounded GLP-1s are typically much cheaper and can serve as an alternative for patients that are navigating complex supply hurdles and spotty insurance coverage. Hims & Hers sells compounded semaglutide for under $200 a month.

The FDA doesn’t review the safety and efficacy of compounded products, which are custom-made alternatives to brand drugs designed to meet a specific patient’s needs. Compounded products can also be produced when brand-name treatments are in shortage.

Semaglutide is currently in shortage, according to the FDA.

Sens. Durbin and Marshall said that advertisements for brand-name GLP-1 medications include “significant risk disclosures to patients about side effects and contraindications, including warnings about potential gallbladder, pancreas, vomiting, diarrhea, and other implications.”

A release on Durbin’s website says that the ad in question appears to exploit a loophole “regarding promotions of compounded drugs by telehealth companies.”

The senators said they believe the FDA may have the authority to take enforcement actions against marketing that could mislead patients, and they plan to introduce new legislation to address regulatory loopholes.

WATCH: New study reveals why patients stop taking GLP-1 obesity drugs