Hype around DeepSeek sent the stock price of several Chinese companies soaring, but proof of their ties to DeepSeek is non-existent.

The little-known artificial intelligence firm has emphasized research, even as it emerged as the brainchild of a hedge fund.

Entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, known for co-writing Mosaic, one of the world’s first web browsers, wrote Sunday on X that “DeepSeek R1 is AI’s Sputnik moment,” likening it to the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and the event that forced the U.S. to realize that its technological abilities were not unassailable.

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.

By Eduardo Baptista BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese startup DeepSeek's launch of its latest AI models, which it says are on a par or better than industry-leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost,