DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup founded in 2023, shot to the top of Apple’s App Store free app chart after releasing a new open-source AI model it says rivals OpenAI's work. Its website was hit by outages amid a spike in interest.

The little-known artificial intelligence firm has emphasized research, even as it emerged as the brainchild of a hedge fund.

DeepSeek is just one of an array of companies developing AI models and applications. Here’s a guide to a number of the biggest players in China.

With a model that offers comparable performance at seemingly a fraction of the cost, the DeepSeek chatbot is causing a reckoning over American dominance in the tech industry. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on advanced chip sales to slow down progress in AI elsewhere.