A frenzy over an artificial intelligence chatbot made by Chinese tech startup DeepSeek was upending stock markets Monday and fueling debates over the economic and geopolitical competition between the U.

Chinese AI lab DeepSeek sent a shockwave through the tech sector this week after releasing its R1 large language model (LLM) that was faster, more efficient, and cheaper to train and run than existing models,

Global investors are worried the emergence of a low-cost Chinese AI model will threaten the dominance of AI leaders.

Liang Wenfeng, the 40-year-old founder of DeepSeek, trained as an engineer and then launched a hedge fund. Now he’s enjoying sudden success with his AI chatbot.

Chinese tech startup DeepSeek released a model of its AI service that seemingly is on-par with U.S.-based competitors like ChatGPT, but required far-less computing power.

The little-known artificial intelligence firm has emphasized research, even as it emerged as the brainchild of a hedge fund.