DeepSeek’s shock in wider US vs China perspective
The most interesting thing about the DeepSeek-driven stock reckoning is what this moment says about the globe’s two biggest economies.
To dispense with the obvious, neither Donald Trump’s 2017-2021 trade war nor Joe Biden’s more targeted curbs these last four years halted Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s tech ambitions. While encountering some speed bumps here and there, Xi’s “Made in China 2025” extravaganza arguably just scored its biggest public-relations win.
The shockwaves that Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek sent through global markets generated the best headlines Xi’s economy has had in a long while.
Its promise of a cost-effective AI model using less-advanced chips has America’s Nvidia and Dutch giant ASML reeling. It also knocked the chips off the shoulders of Silicon Valley bros cozying up to US President Trump. Suddenly, US tech dominance is in question as rarely before.
DeepSeek’s arrival also managed to relegate Trump’s big AI moment below the fold. On January 21, Trump stood with OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and Oracle’s Larry Ellison to declare an AI victory for America. Now, that US$500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure project looks like old news and a potential monumental boondoggle.
Yet it’s the economic takeaways that stand out most. In China’s case, Xi’s big win should provide an even greater incentive to accelerate moves to build trust in the Chinese economy. For Trump, this moment is a stark reminder that tariffs won’t revitalize US tech innovation in ways that equalize the China threat – only bold policy moves can do that.
On the same day DeepSeek was shaking global markets, new data showed that China’s factory activity shrank unexpectedly in January, ending three