HONG KONG (AP) — Asian shares Friday were mixed, with Chinese technology stocks rising as most other Asian equities declined.

Chinese AI stock Qifu Technology is breaking out above a new buy point and into new highs. The stock boasts the bullish RS Line Blue Dot.

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.

A frenzy over an artificial intelligence chatbot made by Chinese tech startup DeepSeek was upending stock markets Monday and fueling debates over the economic and geopolitical competition between the U.

Chinese investors are rushing into AI-related stocks, betting the artificial intelligence advance of home-grown startup DeepSeek will lead to a boom in the sector and give the initiative to China in an intensifying Sino-U.

China’s growing clout in the artificial intelligence space has sparked a wave of optimism toward the nation’s tech shares, with a gauge approaching a technical bull market and brokers issuing upbeat calls.

The Hang Seng Tech Index gained 2.5% on Friday, with a total increase of more than 20% since January. It appears that DeepSeek’s hype has erased concerns of trade wars among Chinese investors, due to which China’s tech stocks in Hong Kong continue to surge.

Robust gains by Chinese tech stocks have added billions of dollars in their market capitalization, driven by the sudden rise to fame by homegrown AI app DeepSeek.