The sudden rise of Chinese AI app DeepSeek has leaders in Washington and Silicon Valley grappling with how to keep the U.S. ahead in the crucial technology.

Government policies, generous funding and a pipeline of AI graduates have helped Chinese firms create advanced LLMs.

Top White House advisers this week expressed alarm that China's DeepSeek may have benefited from a method that allegedly piggybacks off the advances of U.S. rivals called "distillation."

U.S. companies were spooked when the Chinese startup released models said to match or outperform leading American ones at a fraction of the cost.

Zhejiang, home to AI upstart DeepSeek and other firms, endeavours to be a world-leading incubator for the bleeding edge of tech As China's DeepSeek - a relatively recent entrant in a crowded field of companies producing artificial intelligence (AI) models - threatens the dominance of the United States in the nascent but highly competitive sector,

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.

KEY TAKEAWAYS OpenAI said Wednesday that it is probing whether Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek improperly used its data to launch the low-cost model that spooked markets Monday.The comment by OpenAI follows a Bloomberg report that both OpenAI and its biggest backer Microsoft are investigating DeepSeek's model.

As US companies pour billions of dollars into advancing artificial intelligence, a little-known Chinese startup has seemingly done the impossible. DeepSeek unveiled a chatbot app that performs as well if not better than those of Silicon Valley giants,