By Aditya Soni and Deborah Mary Sophia (Reuters) -Days after Chinese upstart DeepSeek revealed a breakthrough in cheap AI computing that shook the U.S. technology industry, the chief executives of Microsoft and Meta defended massive spending that they said was key to staying competitive in the new field.

The tech giants vow to barrel ahead despite the jolt from China’s DeepSeek.

China's DeepSeek took the world by storm this week by introducing an AI model that runs efficiently on older NVIDIA GPUs, using only a tiny fraction of the budget OpenAI, Meta, Tesla, Microsoft, and others have spent building their AI infrastructure. It has raised serious questions about future spending for AI build-outs.

Key Takeaways Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday’s that the rapid rise of competitors from China has only strengthened the tech giant’s commitment to its AI ambitions. The CEO said it’s too early to know how growing competition from China could impact its future investments.