By Summer Zhen

HONG KONG, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Global hedge funds have been snapping up Chinese stocks for much of this year, with their buying accelerating in the past week as the emergence of homegrown artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek fueled investor enthusiasm, Goldman Sachs said in a note.

Onshore and offshore Chinese equities combined are by far the "most notionally net bought market" on Goldman Sachs' prime brokerage book across the world, the bank said in a note to clients citing data until February 7, seen by Reuters this week.

The week between February 3 and 7 recorded the strongest purchase by hedge funds in over four months, the bank said.

Bank prime brokerage desks lend to hedge funds and see their trading flows.

DeepSeek's breakthrough low-cost AI model has become a catalyst for the revaluation of Chinese assets among global investors that are already worried about the peaking valuation of U.S. stocks.

DeepSeek is reversing the narrative of “China is irrelevant on AI and is losing the AI war," said a Hong Kong-based institutional sales director who serves hedge fund clients.

Sentiment was supported by Beijing's policy-easing measures and relief that U.S. President Donald Trump's latest 10% additional tariff on Chinese goods was lower than he initially threatened, analysts and investors said.

The MSCI China index .dMICN00000PUS is up for four consecutive weeks since mid-January and more than 6% so far in February, outperforming the world's major markets.

Billionaire David Tepper's Appaloosa LP significantly raised its stakes in Chinese internet giants Alibaba Group BABA.K and JD.Com 9618.HK during the fourth quarter, according to a securities filing this week, making both firms one of his hedge fund's largest positions.

Goldman Sachs said 95% of the buying last week was in single stocks, led by sectors including consumer discretionary, information technology, industrials and communication services.

Energy, utilities, and real estate were dumped by hedge funds during the period.

Hedge funds' allocation to Chinese equities now stands at 7.6% of Goldman Sachs' total prime book exposure, ranking in the 23th percentile in the past five years, up from roughly 10th in January.

(Reporting by Summer Zhen; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan and Stephen Coates)

((summer.zhen@thomsonreuters.com; 852-3462-7739;))