DeepSeek's Much-Awaited AI Model Boosts Chinese Semiconductor Stocks

Dow Jones04-24 16:45

By Sherry Qin

Semiconductor stocks rose in China and Hong Kong after DeepSeek's long-awaited model launch buoyed hopes that there will be more demand for Made-in-China chips.

Shares of contract chip manufacturers, AI chip designers and chip-equipment makers jumped after the buzzy AI startup launched a preview of its V4 large-language model after months of anticipation.

The relevance for the local semiconductor supply chain lies in the DeepSeek model's increasing reliance on Chinese tech giant Huawei's chip technology. If the startup, which made a splash last year with a homegrown model that rivals Western counterparts, can use local chips alongside foreign-made ones, that gives investors more confidence about China's ability to close the AI gap.

Beijing has made achieving national tech self-sufficiency a top policy priority, underpinning a wave of advances from Chinese companies in cutting-edge fields like AI models and advanced chipmaking.

In a technical paper announcing its latest release, DeepSeek said it has validated one of the V4's key efficiency techniques on both Nvidia chips and Huawei's Ascend chips.

Huawei said in a WeChat post that its entire Ascend line now offers full-stack support for DeepSeek V4 models.

While service capacity for V4-Pro is extremely limited due to computing power constraints, DeepSeek said it expects pricing for the model to drop significantly after the launch of computing clusters powered by Huawei's Ascend 950 chips in the second half of the year.

The Ascend series is Huawei's most advanced line of chips.

The DeepSeek development firms investors' belief that Chinese AI firms could gradually switch to domestic replacements, benefiting local chip designers names like Cambricon Technologies and Moore Threads and foundries like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Hua Hong Semiconductor in the long run, Morningstar analyst Phelix Lee said.

Shares of SMIC, China's largest foundry and Huawei's main contract chip maker, rose 10% in Hong Kong while Hua Hong gained 15%. AI chip designers Moore and MetaX increased 5.4% and 7.2%, respectively. Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment added 2.6%.

Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 24, 2026 04:45 ET (08:45 GMT)

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DeepSeek's Much-Awaited AI Model Boosts Chinese Semiconductor Stocks

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