The economic hardware/software debate about China just got more complicated. Before DeepSeek flipped the script on the artificial intelligence game, many economists worried China had way too much of the former and not enough of the latter.

Government policies, generous funding and a pipeline of AI graduates have helped Chinese firms create advanced LLMs.

KEY TAKEAWAYS OpenAI said Wednesday that it is probing whether Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek improperly used its data to launch the low-cost model that spooked markets Monday.The comment by OpenAI follows a Bloomberg report that both OpenAI and its biggest backer Microsoft are investigating DeepSeek's model.