If short-selling suspicions hold, regulators could investigate potential market manipulation. 2. DeepSeek AI: A Market Manipulation Tool? Meanwhile, Chinese firms are pursuing AI projects on their very own initiative-although generally with financing alternatives from state-led banks-in the hopes of capitalizing on perceived market potential. The launch of the open-supply V2 mannequin disrupted the market by providing API pricing at only 2 RMB (about 25 cents) per million tokens-about 1 % of ChatGPT-four Turbo’s pricing, considerably undercutting almost all Chinese opponents.