DeepSeek’s AI breakthrough challenges Big Tech with a cheaper, efficient model. This may be bad for the incumbents, but good for everybody else.

Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter{beacon} Technology Technology   The Big Story Big Tech unfazed by DeepSeek’s rise Leaders of major U.S. tech companies at the

Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek rattled the U.S. technology sector after the company recently unveiled an AI model that is competitive with leading U.S. models b

The start-up had become a key player in the “Chinese Large-Model Technology Avengers Team” that would counter US AI dominance, said another. China’s delight, however, spelled pain for several giant US technology companies as investors questioned whether DeepSeek’s breakthrough undermined the case for their colossal spending on AI infrastructure.

With a model that offers comparable performance at seemingly a fraction of the cost, the DeepSeek chatbot is causing a reckoning over American dominance in the tech industry. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on advanced chip sales to slow down progress in AI elsewhere.