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.

DeepSeek stunned the tech world with the release of its R1 "reasoning" model, matching or exceeding OpenAI's reasoning model for a fraction of the cost.

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.

Global chip stocks slumped Monday on DeepSeek revealing it had developed AI models that nearly matched American rivals despite using inferior chips.

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.