The United Arab Emirates is planning to launch new artificial intelligence models inspired by China's DeepSeek, a senior official told AFP, calling the system's disruptive emergence "fantastic news".

Faisal Al Bannai, the driving force behind the UAE's Falcon large language model, said DeepSeek's challenge to American tech giants showed the field was wide open in the race for AI dominance.

The oil-rich Gulf monarchy is betting big on the transformational technology as part of its push to diversify its economy away from fossil fuels.

Bannai said he was heartened by DeepSeek, a high-performing and apparently low-cost AI model that sent US tech stocks tumbling after its launch.

"It's fantastic news. Because it proves one thing: this game is at its beginning," Bannai said at........

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