On Monday, DeepSeek overtook ChatGPT as the No. 1 free app on Apple’s mobile-app store in the United States.So far, China has lagged the U.S. in the AI race. DeepSeek suggests that the country has gained significant ground: The chatbot was built more quickly and with less money than analogous models in the U.

But when a little Chinese AI company called DeepSeek takes a trillion-dollar chunk out of the U.S. stock market—in what can best be described as a nerd drive-by? Well—that story goes above the fold, to use a term my journalist friends love.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek disrupts U.S. tech markets with cost-efficient, open-source models, sparking national security concerns and testing trade restrictions.