Social media exploded in a celebration after the news that a Chinese start-up had made an artificial intelligence tool that was more efficient than any in the United States.

Emojis of “DeepSeek pride,” often with smiling cats or dogs, flooded Chinese social media, adding to the festive Lunar New Year atmosphere.

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.