Trump Says DeepSeek AI Should Be 'Wake Up Call' For US Tech Industry

President Donald Trump said the release of DeepSeek AI should be a "wake-up call" for the country's tech industry.

Trump's candid message to America's tech company came at a GOP gathering Monday at the Trump National Doral Resort in Miami.

Chinese-owned DeepSeek is a powerful AI model that reportedly cost a fraction of the amount required by U.S. rivals to build their AI models.

The startup's chatbot surged to become the most downloaded free app on Apple's U.S. App Store over the weekend.

"The release of DeepSeek from an AI company should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win," Trump said to a room full of House Republicans. "We always have the ideas. We're always first."

Trump argued that America has "the greatest scientists in the world" living in tech bubbles like Silicon Valley and Seattle, an American company should have created a generative AI that's faster and affordable.

"Today and over the last couple of days I've been reading about China and some other companies in China–one in particular that's coming up with a faster method AI and a much less expensive method and that's good," Trump said. "Because you don't have to spend as much money. I view that as a positive, as an asset."

Tech investor and Trump ally Marc Andreessen declared "Deepseek R1 is AI's Sputnik moment," referencing the 1957 launch of Earth's first artificial satellite by the Soviet Union that stunned the Western world, AFP reported.

"If China is catching up quickly to the US in the AI race, then the economics of AI will be turned on its head," warned Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, in a note to clients.

U.S. tech stocks like Nvidia, Micron, Arm Holdings and Broadcom, took a tumble after DeepSeek upended the AI race.

"If it's fact, and if it's true–and nobody really knows if it is–but I view that as a positive because you won't be spending as much to get the same results, hopefully."

Trump said hopefully the tech industry "will come up with the same solution" and "dominate the future like never before."