Chinese app DeepSeek hammers US tech stocks with cheaper open-source AI
EMJ Capital President and founder Eric Jackson analyzes tough A.I. competition, the future of Stargate and cryptocurrency cybersecurity under the Trump administration.
U.S. tech shares tumbled on Monday after the popularity of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek raised concerns among investors over American dominance in the sector.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite plunged 3.5% in afternoon trading. The S&P 500 was down 2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 60 points.
DeepSeek is gaining attention in Silicon Valley as the company appears to be nearly matching the capability of chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but at a fraction of the development cost.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I:COMP | NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX | 19329.912544 | -624.39 | -3.13% |
| I:DJI | DOW JONES AVERAGES | 44682.9 | +258.65 | +0.58% |
| SP500 | S&P 500 | 6008.16 | -93.08 | -1.53% |
Nvidia shares were hit the hardest, falling more than 15%, and led other tech companies lower. Arm Holdings and Advanced Micro Devices were lower by 9.5% and 6%, respectively. Microsoft shares slid 3.5%.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVDA | NVIDIA CORP. | 118.59 | -24.03 | -16.85% |
| ARM | ARM HOLDINGS PLC | 145.09 | -17.43 | -10.72% |
| AMD | ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES INC. | 115.03 | -7.81 | -6.36% |
| MSFT | MICROSOFT CORP. | 434.81 | -9.25 | -2.08% |
DeepSeek has surged in popularity in global app stores since the app was released earlier this month, having been downloaded1.6 million times by Jan. 25 in the U.S. and ranking No. 1 in iPhone app stores in Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, the U.S. and the U.K. Unlike ChatGPT and other major AI competitors, DeepSeek is open-source, allowing developers to offer their own improvements on the software.
The company unveiled R1, a specialized model designed for complex problem-solving, on Jan. 20, which “zoomed to the global top 10 in performance,” and was built far more rapidly, with fewer, less powerful AI chips, at a much lower cost than other U.S. models, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Meta’s Chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, took to social media to speak about the app and its rapid success.
AI WILL BE THE MAJOR FOCUS AT LAS VEGAS CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW
A chatbot app developed by the Chinese AI company DeepSeek (Getty Images / Getty Images)
He pointed out in a post on Threads, that what stuck out to him most about DeepSeek’s success was not the heightened threat created by Chinese competition, but the value of keeping AI models open source, so anyone could benefit.
“It’s not that China’s AI is ‘surpassing the US,’ but rather that ‘open source models are surpassing proprietary ones,’” LeCun explained.
OPENAI CEO SAM ALTMAN RINGS IN 2025 WITH CRYPTIC, CONCERNING TWEET ABOUT AI’S FUTURE
In this photo illustration, the OpenAI logo is seen displayed on a mobile phone screen with ChatGPT logo in the background. (Photo Illustration by Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty…
Read More: Chinese app DeepSeek hammers US tech stocks with cheaper open-source AI