DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup, has sent shockwaves through the global tech industry, triggering a massive sell-off in chip stocks and igniting political tensions in Washington. DeepSeek’s stunning efficiency—achieving OpenAI-tier performance with a fraction of the compute power—has Silicon Valley on edge. As its app rockets to No. 1 on the Apple and Google app stores, Wall Street and Washington scramble to respond, marking what could be the biggest challenge yet to America’s AI supremacy.