DeepSeek represents a shift in the global tech narrative

Seemingly overnight, DeepSeek has become China’s national champion, along with companies like battery maker CATL and EV producer BYD. © Reuters

Henny Sender is the founder and managing partner of Apsara Advisory, a strategic consultancy for financial services companies. She was previously a managing director at the investment company BlackRock.

The DeepSeek moment has been likened to the Sputnik moment of the 1950s, when technologists in the U.S. — the world’s most powerful nation — were jolted by an unexpected challenge to their dominance from the Soviet Union, a rival whose accomplishments they had long dismissed.