China's DeepSeek AI is a 'Sputnik moment' for the US

The US is facing a new “Sputnik moment” with the sudden appearance of China's DeepSeek AI firm wiping $1 trillion off the value of US tech stocks.

DeepSeek logo
(Image credit: Lam Yik/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The US is facing a new “Sputnik moment”. In 1957 the Soviet Union shattered US complacency by becoming the first country to launch an artificial satellite into space. In 2025, DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, has again upended illusions of US tech leadership, wiping the “smug grin” off the faces of Silicon Valley billionaires in the process, says Tom Leonard in the Daily Mail. DeepSeek has launched a model that matches the performance of the best US chatbots, but at much lower cost. America’s OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, has spent $1 billion training various versions of ChatGPT, but DeepSeek says it paid less than $5.6 million to build a comparably good chatbot.

DeepSeek wipes $1 trillion off US tech shares

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.