Social media exploded in a celebration after the news that a Chinese start-up had made an artificial intelligence tool that was more efficient than any in the United States.

The start-up had become a key player in the “Chinese Large-Model Technology Avengers Team” that would counter US AI dominance, said another. China’s delight, however, spelled pain for several giant US technology companies as investors questioned whether DeepSeek’s breakthrough undermined the case for their colossal spending on AI infrastructure.

Top White House advisers this week expressed alarm that China's DeepSeek may have benefited from a method that allegedly piggybacks off the advances of U.S. rivals called "distillation." The technique,