SINGAPORE—Take a team of young Chinese engineers, hired by a boss with disdain for experience. Add some clever programming shortcuts, and a loophole in American rules that allowed them to get advanced chips.
That is the formula China’s DeepSeek used to shock the world with its artificial-intelligence programs.
Conventional thinking held that developing leading AI required loads of expensive, cutting-edge computer chips—and that Chinese companies would have trouble competing because they couldn’t get those chips. DeepSeek defied those predictions with a resourcefulness that led to a $1 trillion bloodbath on Wall Street and is spurring Silicon Valley to rethink its approach.
