Nvidia Shares Sink As Chinese DeepSeek AI Shakes Industry
The US tech giant Nvidia has lost over a sixth of its value after DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app, spooked investors in the US and Europe.
DeepSeek, a Chinese AI chatbot reportedly made at a fraction of its rival cost, launched last week but has already become the most downloaded free app in the US.
The AI chip giant Nvidia and other tech firms connected to AI, including Microsoft and Google, saw their values tumble on Monday in the wake of DeepSeek’s sudden rise.
In a separate development, DeepSeek said on Monday that it will temporarily limit registrations because of “large-scale malicious attacks” on its software.
The DeepSeek chatbot was reportedly developed for a fraction of the cost of its rivals, raising questions about the future of America’s AI dominance and the scale of investments US firms are planning.
Last week, OpenAI joined a group of other firms who pledged to invest $500bn (£400bn) in building AI infrastructure in the US.
President Donald Trump, in one of his first announcements since returning to office, called it “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history” that would help keep “the future of technology” in the US.
What Makes Deepseek a Game Changer in AI?
DeepSeek is powered by the open source DeepSeek-V3 model, which its researchers claim was trained for around $6m, but this claim has been disputed by others in AI.
The researchers say they use already existing technology, as well as open source code – software that can be used, modified or distributed by anybody free of charge.
DeepSeek’s emergence comes as the US is restricting the sale of the advanced chip technology that powers AI to China.
To continue their work without steady supplies of imported advanced chips, Chinese AI developers have shared their work with each other and experimented with new approaches to the technology.
This has resulted in AI models that require far less computing power than before.It also means that they cost a lot less than previously thought possible, which has the potential to upend the industry.
DeepSeek Effect On Stock Markets
DeepSeek’s sudden popularity has startled stock markets in Europe and the US.
In the US, AI chipmaker Nvidia ended Monday’s trading having plunged 16.9% while its rival Broadcom slumped 17.4%.
Other tech firms also sank, with Microsoft down 2.14% and Google’s owner Alphabet down over 4%.
In Europe, Dutch chip equipment maker ASML ended Monday’s trading with its share price down by more than 7% while shares in Siemens Energy, which makes hardware related to AI, had plunged by a fifth.
This idea of a low-cost Chinese version hasn’t necessarily been at the forefront, so it’s taken the market a little bit by surprise, said Fiona Cincotta, senior market analyst at City Index.
“So, if you suddenly get this low-cost AI model, then that’s going to raise concerns over the profits of rivals, particularly given the amount that they’ve already invested in more expensive AI infrastructure.”
Singapore-based technology equity adviser Vey-Sern Ling said it could “potentially derail the investment case for the entire AI supply chain”.
But Wall Street banking giant Citi cautioned that while DeepSeek could challenge the dominant positions of American companies such as OpenAI, issues faced by Chinese firms could hamper their development.
Meanwhile, DeepSeek said on Monday it had been the victim of a cyberattack.
Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek’s services, we are temporarily limiting registrations to ensure continued service, it said in a statement.
“Existing users can log in as usual. Thanks for your understanding and support.”
Who is Behind DeepSeek?
The company was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng in Hangzhou, a city in southeastern China. The 40-year-old, information and electronic engineering graduate founder, also founded the hedge fund that backed DeepSeek.
He reportedly built up a store of Nvidia A100 chips, now banned from export to China. Experts believe this collection – which some estimates put at 50,000 – led him to launch DeepSeek, by pairing these chips with cheaper, lower-end ones that are still available to import.
Mr Liang was recently seen at a meeting between industry experts and the Chinese premier Li Qiang. In a July 2024 interview with The China Academy, Mr Liang said he was surprised by the reaction to the previous version of his AI model.
“We didn’t expect pricing to be such a sensitive issue, we were simply following our own pace, calculating costs, and setting prices accordingly.” he said.
