Nvidia’s $465 billion DeepSeek rout is largest in market history

In a bid to stall China’s progress in AI, the US has banned the export of advanced semiconductor technologies to the country and is limiting sales of advanced Nvidia AI chips to others.

Nvidia Corp.’s plunge, fueled by investor concern about Chinese artificial-intelligence startup DeepSeek, erased a record amount of stock-market value from the world’s largest company.

Nvidia shares tumbled as much as 13% soon after the opening bell Monday, erasing about $465 billion from the company’s market capitalization. That eclipsed the previous record, a 9% drop in September that wiped out about $279 billion in value.

The drop rippled through the rest of the market due to how much weight Nvidia has in major indexes. Its previous drops have caused seven of the top ten biggest one-day drops in the S&P 500 Index, based on market value, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The S&P 500 fell as much as 2.3% early Monday, while the Nasdaq 100 was down as much as 3.6%.

The semiconductor maker is leading a broader selloff in technology stocks after DeepSeek’s low-cost approach reignited concerns that big US companies have poured too much money into developing artificial intelligence, as the Chinese firm appears to provide a comparable performance to Western chatbots at a fraction of the price.

The latest AI model of DeepSeek, released last week, is widely seen as competitive with those of OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc. The open-sourced product was founded by quant-fund chief Liang Wenfeng and is now at the top of Apple Inc.’s App Store rankings.

“Concerns have immediately emerged that it could be a disruptor to the current AI business model, which relies on high end chips and extensive computing power and hence energy,” Jefferies analysts said in a note to clients.

Nvidia has been the biggest beneficiary of the influx in spending on AI because they design semiconductors used by the technology. While that heavy spending looks poised to continue, investors may be more wary of rewarding companies that continue to spend without showing a return on the investment.

Meta announced plans on Friday to boost capital expenditures on AI projects this year by about half to as much as $65 billion, sending shares to a record high. That came on the heels of OpenAI, SoftBank Group Corp. and Oracle Corp. announcing a $100 billion joint venture called Stargate to build out data centers and AI infrastructure projects around the US.

In a bid to stall China’s progress in AI, the US has banned the export of advanced semiconductor technologies to the country and is limiting sales of advanced Nvidia AI chips to others. ASML has never been able to sell its most-advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography machines to China because of US-led export restrictions. Last year, the Dutch government also restricted immersion deep ultraviolet lithography systems to China after pressure from the Biden administration.

But DeepSeek’s progress suggests Chinese AI engineers have found a way to work around the export bans, focusing on greater efficiency with limited resources.