DeepSeek, a young Chinese AI startup, triggered a steep sell-off in U.S. tech stocks Monday as its cost-effective AI models raised doubts about the vast investments by American tech giants in artificial intelligence. DeepSeek was founded in 2023 and released its R1 reasoning model on January 20th, outperforming OpenAI's latest model in tests. DeepSeek sets itself apart with reasoning capabilities that generate a "chain of thought" before providing final answers to improve accuracy. DeepSeek's app surged to the top of Apple's U.S. download charts. Nvidia's shares fell sharply alongside a broader tech market decline.
