A Chinese start-up has stunned the technology industry—and financial markets—with a cheaper, lower-tech AI assistant that matches the state of the art

The DeepSeek chatbot, known as R1, responds to user queries just like its U.S.-based counterparts. Early testing released by DeepSeek suggests that its quality rivals that of other AI products, while the company says it costs less and uses far fewer specialized chips than do its competitors.

DeepSeek AI, favored by investors over ChatGPT, uses rapid advancements with cheaper chips as U.S. tech restrictions fuel China’s AI innovation.

A recently released AI model called DeepSeek from a China-based startup is currently wreaking havoc on the tech space in the U.S. Why? Because it's blowing all other Big Tech models out of the water.

A new Chinese AI model, created by the Hangzhou-based startup DeepSeek, has stunned the American AI industry by outperforming some of OpenAI’s leading models, displacing ChatGPT at the top of the iOS app store,

Silicon Valley and Washington leaders said the app shows China can challenge the U.S. The Nasdaq lost 3 percent and chipmaker Nvidia shed $589 billion in market capitalization.

DeepSeek released an open-source artificial intelligence model in December, saying it took only two months and less than $6 million to create it.

President Donald Trump said the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's ability to train AI more cheaply is a "positive" development and should be a "wake-up call" for tech industries. Trump's comments followed DeepSeek's ascension to the top of Apple's free downloads chart,