DeepSeek a year on: how a little-known Chinese start-up sparked a global AI arms race

One year ago, a little-known Chinese start-up called DeepSeek burst onto the scene with a new artificial intelligence model that challenged assumptions about China’s ability to innovate under US technology curbs.
In what became known as the “DeepSeek moment”, the Hangzhou-based firm kicked off what some likened as a modern-day “Sputnik moment” for China’s AI ambitions.
Just as the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, shocked the US and triggered the…