"DeepSeek's AI Surge: $1T Wipeout, NVIDIA's Historic Loss, OpenAI's Praise"

NVIDIA stumbled, tech markets wobbled, but DeepSeek AI could be crypto’s leap ahead

On January 27, 2025, the global tech industry faced a significant shakeup when DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, launched its R1 model. The launch sent shockwaves through the market, wiping over $1 trillion off the Nasdaq Composite Index and causing some of the biggest names in tech to experience significant losses. NVIDIA, for instance, experienced the largest single-day market loss in U.S. history, with a staggering $600 billion drop in value. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, lost $100 billion, while Microsoft took a $7 billion hit.

The launch of DeepSeek disrupted the narrative of American dominance in artificial intelligence, challenging perceptions that state-of-the-art AI models could only be developed with colossal investments and the most advanced chips. DeepSeek’s R1 model has sent shockwaves globally because of its ability to match the performance of competitors like OpenAI’s o1-mini while using fewer resources and far less money. According to the company, R1 was developed at a cost of just $5.6 million, a stark contrast to estimates for similar models from U.S. firms, which range between $100 million and $1 billion.

Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called DeepSeek’s work “invigorating,” praising its ability to deliver impressive results for the price. “DeepSeek’s R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price. We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! We will pull up some releases,” Altman tweeted on January 28, 2025.

So why has DeepSeek become the focus of global attention? And how does this disrupt not only AI but also the broader tech and crypto markets? Let’s take a closer look at the hype and controversies that make DeepSeek a name the world can’t ignore.

The hype, the data, and the disruption

DeepSeek’s success lies in breaking barriers that were long considered unbreachable. The company’s ability to build a competitive AI model without access to advanced U.S. chips has turned heads and raised questions about the necessity of massive AI investments. U.S. sanctions