DeepSeek’s ‘Sputnik moment’ exposes holes in U.S. curbs on chip export

Tags: International News

Why in the news?

• U.S. export controls on high-tech chips may have inadvertently fuelled the success of start-up DeepSeek’s AI chatbot, sparking fears in Washington there could be little it can do to stop China in the push for global dominance in artificial intelligence.

Important points:

• For years many hadassumed U.S. supremacy in AI was a given, with the field dominated by big Silicon Valley names like OpenAI and Facebook-parent Meta.
• The firm, based in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, has stunned investors and industry insiders with its R1 programme, which can match its American competitors seemingly at a fraction of the cost.