Robust gains by Chinese tech stocks have added billions of dollars in their market capitalization, driven by the sudden rise to fame by homegrown AI app DeepSeek.

A gauge of Chinese tech shares trading in Hong Kong was poised to enter a technical bull market after DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence model ignited interest in China’s internet firms.

The Hang Seng Tech Index gained 2.5% on Friday, with a total increase of more than 20% since January. It appears that DeepSeek’s hype has erased concerns of trade wars among Chinese investors, due to which China’s tech stocks in Hong Kong continue to surge.

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.

DeepSeek was reportedly developed in just two months at a cost of under $6 million — a stark contrast to the billions typically spent by US giants.

Tech stocks falling after small Chinese lab, DeepSeek, develops new AI model that challenges ChatGPT and Tesla; what to know.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is making waves as domestic tech giants, from chipmakers to cloud providers, rally to support its AI models. Companies like Moore Threads and Hygon Information Technology,