China’s growing clout in the artificial intelligence space has sparked a wave of optimism toward the nation’s tech shares, with a gauge entering a bull market and brokers issuing upbeat calls.Listen to the Here’s Why podcast on Apple,

Asian shares Friday were mixed, with Chinese technology stocks rising as most other Asian equities declined.Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dipped nearly 0.72% in afternoon trading to 38,787.02. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slid just 0.

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

Some AI researchers hailed DeepSeek’s R1 as a breakthrough on the same level as DeepMind’s AlphaZero, a 2017 model that became superhuman at the board games Chess and Go by purely playing against itself and improving, rather than observing any human games.

DeepSeek stunned the tech world with the release of its R1 "reasoning" model, matching or exceeding OpenAI's reasoning model for a fraction of the cost.

The Hang Seng Tech Index, which tracks the 30 largest technology companies listed in the city, rose as much as 2.9% on Friday, reflecting a rise of more than 20% from its January low.