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.

Microsoft has earmarked US$80 billion ($128 billion) for AI in its current fiscal year, while Meta has pledged as much as US$65 billion. That is a far cry from the roughly US$6 million DeepSeek said it has spent to develop its AI model.