Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins/Futurism. Source: Getty Images
When Chinese AI company DeepSeek released its cheap and serviceable V3 model early last year, it sent shock waves throughout Silicon Valley and beyond, sending the stock market into a tizzy, shaking political confidence in American AI and instilling new fears among China’s hard-liners.
DeepSeek is preparing to launch it after a year New V4 Model – a development that could have a major impact on American tech companies and the companies that support them.
according to a cnbc bulletinGiven the release-schedule of previous versions, the latest version of DeepSeek is “expected to be imminent”. Depending on how impactful V4 is when it hits, the AI-heavy Nasdaq could suffer a major upset, as could the tech companies listed on it.
Per cnbcLast year, when DeepSeek V3 was launched, the Nasdaq Composite fell 3 percent and shares of chip giant Nvidia fell 17 percent, resulting in a loss of $600 billion in one fell swoop. While both recovered from the hit over time, it was a defining moment for DeepSeek, securing its reputation as a global player in the California-dominated AI sector.
If the stock market gets its “Part Two moment” – a DeepSeq that is able to compete with the current generation models from Anthropic and OpenAI – things could get worse. Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Google to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI in 2025, and are expected to spend even more $650 billion In 2026.
Simply put, there is a lot of money in the pot right now, and even more is being moved around based on forecasts of future spending.
Given that DeepSeek V3 was able to confound the US tech industry for a total reported production cost of less than $6 million – using low-powered Nvidia chips, no less – the AI industry can only do one thing this week: buckle up.
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