(Yicai) Feb. 10 -- Shares in China’s three major telecom operators rose sharply today after the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that the three firms are applying artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek’s open-source large language models, which recently sent shockwaves through the tech world, across a wide range of scenarios.

China Telecom’s share price [SHA:601728] closed up 6.6 percent at CNY7.60 (USD1) today. Earlier in the day it soared 10 percent to a record high of CNY7.84. China Unicom’s stock [SHA:600050] closed up 4.4 percent at CNY5.46 (USD0.75), after earlier surging as much as 7.8 percent. And China Mobile’s shares [SHA:600941] climbed 1.7 percent to CNY110 (USD15), after rising 5.1 percent earlier.

China's three major carriers have fully integrated DeepSeek’s large language models and are applying them in multiple scenarios and products, according to a notice issued by the MIIT on Feb. 8. They have also developed dedicated computing power solutions and supporting environments to help unleash the potential of the company's flagship DeepSeek-R1 model.

DeepSeek-R1 ousted OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app on Apple's App Store in China and the US on Jan. 27, seven days after its launch. The chatbot has created a stir in Silicon Valley and beyond as its high performance rivals that of US closed-source competitors, and yet it was trained at a fraction of the cost.

Since its success, AI firms have become the darlings of the mainland stock markets. The DeepSeek Partner Index, launched last week by financial information platform Wind, surged 27 percent in the three trading days ending Feb. 7.

Chinese automakers have also been quick to jump on the bandwagon. Car manufacturers such as Geely Auto, Dongfeng Motor and SAIC Motor's IM Motors have said that they will integrate the DeepSeek chatbot into their smart cockpits.

And in the finance sector, more than 10 brokerages and public fund companies have announced the deployment of DeepSeek’s AI assistant in business scenarios including investment research and customer service.

Editor: Kim Taylor