The Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek has rattled markets with claims its latest AI model performs on a par with those of OpenAI, despite using less advanced, more energy efficient computer chips.

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.

Entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, known for co-writing Mosaic, one of the world’s first web browsers, wrote Sunday on X that “DeepSeek R1 is AI’s Sputnik moment,” likening it to the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and the event that forced the U.S. to realize that its technological abilities were not unassailable.

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.

That's what some investors, after the little known Chinese startup DeepSeek released a chatbot that experts say holds its own against industry leaders, like OpenAI and Google, despite being made with less money and computing power.

A new and largely unknown Chinese AI system called DeepSeek has rocked the tech industry and global markets.Tech shares plunged and chip maker Nvidia suffered falls of nearly 17 per cent on Monday, as President Donald Trump warned DeepSeek’s emergence was a “wake up call” for existing AI giants.

DeepSeek, a Chinese startup founded in 2023, has rapidly emerged as a disruptive force in the global generative AI industry with･･･