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.

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 startup DeepSeek's launch of its latest AI models, which it says are on a par or better than industry-leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost, is threatening to upset the technology world order.

The app's sudden popularity, as well as DeepSeek's reportedly low costs compared to those of US-based AI companies, have thrown financial markets into a spin. Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has hailed DeepSeek as "one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs" in AI.

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup that’s just over a year old, has stirred awe and consternation in Silicon Valley.