DeepSeek sparks AI stock selloff; Nvidia loses record $593 bn in mcap

Global investors dumped tech stocks on Monday as they worried that the emergence of a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model would threaten the dominance of AI leaders like Nvidia, evaporating $593 billion of the chipmaker’s market value, a record one-day loss for any company on Wall Street.

Last week, Chinese startup DeepSeek launched a free AI assistant that it says uses less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent services. By Monday, the assistant had overtaken US rival ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s app store.