The good results of the Chinese-made AI assistant caused the share price of companies such as Nvidia to fall by around 17%.
Open-source generative artificial intelligence (AI) assistant DeepSeek, similar to proprietary models such as those promoted by US multinationals OpenAI or Meta, has suffered a cyberattack that has caused the company to limit the registration of new users.
"Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek services, registration may be busy. Please wait and try again. Registered users can log in normally. Thank you for your understanding and support," reads the warning that the Chinese company is sending to users trying to register for the first time at this time.
The good results of the AI assistant developed by the Chinese company DeepSeek have caused the share price of companies such as Nvidia to plummet, which at around 8:00 p.m. on Monday fell by around 17%, which means a reduction in its capitalization of around 500 billion dollars (almost 480 billion euros), which is the largest intraday loss ever recorded.
Nvidia's slump amid fears of the impact that DeepSeek's success could have on demand for high-end microchips was followed by sharp falls from other manufacturers such as Broadcom (-14.6%); AMD (-4.77%); Arm Holdings (-8.4%) or Micron (-9.8%), as well as the Dutch ASML (-7.2%) and ASM International (-11%).
Aside from the widespread slump among microprocessor manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic, the impact of DeepSeek on market expectations was also felt in the stock prices of energy supply companies amid fears that AI energy demand will be lower than expected.
DeepSeek has been crowned the most downloaded app for the iPhone, ahead of the popular ChatGPT, from the American company OpenAI, according to data from its app store provided by Apple.
The Chinese company's free AI assistant has attracted attention by offering competitive performance despite theoretically using lower-cost chips and less data with an open-source model, potentially calling into question the momentum for higher-end chipmakers and the pricing power of US giants.
On its social media, DeepSeek claims to defend the open source spirit and the long-term approach to promoting inclusive general AI, which it accompanies with information on the details of its progress in order to "see how the gap between open and closed models is reduced."
