Markets latest: Wall Street tech stocks head for $1tn sell-off as DeepSeek rattles investors

A small Chinese artificial intelligence lab stunned the world last week by revealing the technical recipe for its cutting-edge model, turning its reclusive leader into a national hero who has defied US attempts to stop China’s high-tech ambitions.

DeepSeek, founded by hedge fund manager Liang Wenfeng, released its R1 model last Monday, explaining in a detailed paper how to build a large language model on a bootstrapped budget that can automatically learn and improve itself without human supervision.

The company’s R1 release sparked a frenzied debate in Silicon Valley about whether better-resourced US AI companies, including Meta and Anthropic, can defend their technical edge.

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