China’s AI start-ups scramble to respond to DeepSeek amid shift to open source

DeepSeek sent shock waves across China’s artificial intelligence (AI) community after its low-cost models upended conventional thinking in the industry, prompting other start-ups to launch open-source models and seek fresh funding.

A spin-off from a hedge fund owned by Liang Wenfeng, DeepSeek grabbed headlines for its impact on Wall Street and Silicon Valley. The Hangzhou-based start-up has also dominated the spotlight in China’s AI arena at the expense of local peers such as Moonshot AI…