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.

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.

Here’s what you need to know about DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup that rattled markets as its app dethroned OpenAI's as the most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite closed down nearly 3% on Monday, with shares of AI-focused chipmaker Nvidia plunging 17% and shaving nearly $590 billion from the company’s market cap.

Some AI researchers hailed DeepSeek’s R1 as a breakthrough on the same level as DeepMind’s AlphaZero, a 2017 model that became superhuman at the board games Chess and Go by purely playing against itself and improving, rather than observing any human games.

By some measures, Boston’s startup ecosystem has been left far behind Silicon Valley in the race to develop artificial intelligence. But the shocking emergence of Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek could actually help Boston catch up.

DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup founded in 2023, shot to the top of Apple’s App Store free app chart after releasing a new open-source AI model it says rivals OpenAI's work. Its website was hit by outages amid a spike in interest.

Technology stocks led gains in Asia-Pacific markets on Wednesday, tracking advances on Wall Street as investor angst ebbed over the emergence of a low-cost Chinese AI model that some see rivalling U.S.

Tongliang Liu, University of Sydney Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek has sent shockwaves through the tech community, with the release of extremely efficient AI models that can compete with cutting-edge products from US companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.