DeepSeek’s sudden splash in the large language model space has given China a powerful tool to catalyze artificial-intelligence adoption in the country and boost economic growth.

While Goldman Sachs pegs a 20-basis-point to 30-basis-point boost to China’s GDP over the long term — by 2030 — its expects the country’s economy to start reflecting the positive impact of AI adoption from next year itself as AI-driven automation improves productivity.

“The recent emergence of DeepSeek … suggests faster AI development and adoption in China than we previously anticipated,” economists at the Wall Street bank said.

The enthusiasm around DeepSeek is also being reflected in the sharp rally in China stocks, with the MSCI China index soaring over 21% from its January low, according to LSEG data.

The startup’s rise is triggering a reassessment of China’s “investability” after an extended period of limited attention, Morgan Stanley said in a note this week.

“DeepSeek demonstrates that China is at or near the cutting edge of AI development, which boosts the prestige of China’s economy and tech ecosystem, making them more attractive for global investors,” said Gabriel Wildau, managing director at Teneo.

The company’s launch of a cheaper and more efficient AI model came as a timely confidence boost as the Chinese leadership faces a prolonged economic gloom, partly owed to the slump in its property market, while the specter of a fierce trade war with the U.S. looms large.

DeepSeek’s R-1 reasoning model has been lauded as being able to match, or even outperform, leading global AI offerings amid claims of running on cheaper and less sophisticated chips. The open-source model also can be repurposed by developers outside the company to significantly boost efficiency at a lower operating costs.

The startup has shaken China’s AI ecosystem as well, with state-owned entities as well as large tech players, including competitors, leveraging its open-sourced architecture.

“The scale and speed of [AI] adoption [in China] is amazingly fast right now, and it’s not slowing down,” said Wei Sun, principal analyst of artificial intelligence at Counterpoint Research.

Chinese leadership last year vowed “a leap forward” by spurring new growth drivers based on innovation in advanced sectors, such as AI and semiconductors, as U.S. export controls on advanced equipment and the most advanced semiconductors thwarted its ability to make major tech breakthroughs.

With Beijing signaling support for the startup, a growing number of local governments, from Hohhot in northern China to the southern city of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, are launching DeepSeek-powered “public servants” to automate governance, handling requests from administrative paper work to general public services.

At least three state-owned telecommunications operators have also adopted the cutting-edge model in recent weeks.

Private businesses have tapped the new model to see how it can improve productivity. Automakers, financial services companies, smartphone makers and cloud computing operators including Alibaba, Huawei and Tencent have rushed in recent weeks to integrate with DeepSeek.

“With DeepSeek becoming a global household name in a matter of weeks, Beijing is [using it as an opportunity] to showcase China’s tech champions and demonstrate Chinese tech resilience and innovation in the face of US-led controls,” said Reva Goujon, director at Rhodium Group.

A Pew study in 2023 found that 19% of U.S. workers are in jobs with high exposure to AI. That study used the term “exposure” as it’s unclear whether AI’s impact will be positive or negative.

While AI application may cause the number of displaced workers to rise in the near term, these workers will eventually find jobs in other sectors where labor has a competitive advantage, helping employment to grow again, Goldman said.

— CNBC’s Dylan Butts, Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

Executives at Meta stand to get bigger bonuses this year. 

The company said in a corporate filing Thursday that it had approved “an increase in the target bonus percentage” for its annual bonus plan for executives. Meta’s named executive officers could earn a bonus of 200% of their base salary under the new plan, up from the 75% they earned previously, according to the filing. 

The updated bonus plan doesn’t apply to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the filing noted.

A committee for Meta’s board of directors approved the change after determining that the “target total cash compensation” for its executives “was at or below the 15th percentile of the target total cash compensation of executives holding similar positions” at peer companies. 

“Following this increase, the target total cash compensation for the named executive officers (other than the CEO) falls at approximately the 50th percentile of the Peer Group Target Cash Compensation,” the filing said.

The approval of the new executive bonus plan comes a week after Meta began laying off 5% of its overall workforce. The company had previously said this would impact its lowest performers.

Meta also slashed its annual distribution of stock options by about 10% for thousands of employees, according to a report published Thursday by the Financial Times. The report noted that the stock-option reduction may differ based on where the workers live and their position at the company.

Meta shares are up over 47% over the past year and closed Thursday at $694.84, underscoring  investor enthusiasm over the social media company’s growing sales in the digital advertising market and the potential for its AI investments to eventually generate big returns.

The company said in January that its fourth-quarter revenue grew 21% year over year to $48.39 billion.

Meta did not reply to a request for comment.

Watch: What’s driving Meta’s stock run

Amazon has dethroned Walmart in quarterly revenue for the first time ever.

Amazon said earlier this month that it brought in $187.8 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter. That beat Walmart’s sales for the period, which came in at $180.5 billion, the company reported on Thursday.

Since 2012, Walmart has held the distinction of being the top revenue generator each quarter, a title it gained after overtaking oil giant Exxon Mobil.

Walmart still leads the way in annual sales, though Amazon is gaining ground. Walmart is projected to reel in $708.7 billion in the fiscal year ahead while Amazon’s full-year revenue for 2025 is expected to reach $700.8 billion, according to FactSet.

Amazon’s core retail unit remains its biggest revenue generator, but its top line is also being fueled by its massive cloud computing, advertising and seller services businesses. Third-party seller services, which includes commissions and fees collected by Amazon on fulfillment and shipping, advertising and customer support, accounted for 24.5% of the company’s total sales last year. Amazon Web Services was responsible for nearly 17%.

Walmart has looked to its chief rival for ways to sustain sales growth. The company operates a third-party marketplace and offers sellers fulfillment services, although both businesses are a fraction of the size of Amazon’s. Walmart has also launched an advertising business and a loyalty program for shoppers, called Walmart+, that competes with Amazon Prime.

— CNBC’s Robert Hum contributed to this report.