Nearly $590 billion in market valuation was lost in one day. This all-time record was broken by Nvidia, whose share price lost 16.86% on Wall Street on Monday, January 27. The sudden devaluation of the world leader in specialized processors for artificial intelligence (AI) is because the markets are impressed by DeepSeek, a Chinese start-up that released a model with performance comparable to that of leaders OpenAI or Google, but at a lower development cost in computing.

It's a massive shock for tech. The Nasdaq index plunged 3.07%. Japanese investor SoftBank, which had surged on US President Donald Trump's announcement on January 21 about his participation in the gigantic Stargate data center project, involving $500 billion in investment, also fell by 6%.

The dizzying sums involved are on a par with the stratospheric valuations of AI-related companies, long described as a bubble. But they also reflect the extent of the doubt and even panic that has gripped the markets. "DeepSeek R1 is AI's Sputnik moment," Marc Andreessen, one of Silicon Valley's best-known venture capitalists, quipped on X on Sunday, referring to the 1957 launch of the first Soviet satellite. A follower replied: "I think it's closer to the Japanese cars in the 60s."

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