Asian shares Friday were mixed, with Chinese technology stocks rising as most other Asian equities declined. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dipped nearly 0.44% in early trading to 38,893.65. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slid just 0.

Robust gains by Chinese tech stocks have added billions of dollars in their market capitalization, driven by the sudden rise to fame by homegrown AI app DeepSeek.

A gauge of Chinese tech shares trading in Hong Kong was poised to enter a technical bull market after DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence model ignited interest in China’s internet firms.

Chinese investors are rushing into AI-related stocks, betting the artificial intelligence advance of home-grown startup DeepSeek will lead to a boom in the sector and give the initiative to China in an intensifying Sino-U.

Entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, known for co-writing Mosaic, one of the world’s first web browsers, wrote Sunday on X that “DeepSeek R1 is AI’s Sputnik moment,” likening it to the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and the event that forced the U.S. to realize that its technological abilities were not unassailable.

Tech stocks falling after small Chinese lab, DeepSeek, develops new AI model that challenges ChatGPT and Tesla; what to know.