A small-town Chinese engineer, Leang Fan Wang, disrupted the global tech landscape by launching DeepSeek, an open-source AI system that contributed to a $1 trillion stock drop and challenged U.S. tech dominance. Despite limited funding and hardware access, DeepSeek rivaled leading American models by minimizing GPU dependency and focusing on AI innovation over profit. Wang’s approach favored homegrown talent and a decentralized company structure, gaining attention from the Chinese government, which appointed him as the nation’s AI leader. DeepSeek’s rise signals a shift in global AI power, highlighting China’s emergence as a serious contender in the race for artificial general intelligence.