Nvidia is no longer the world’s most valuable company after suffering the biggest stock market drop in history.
The chipmaker shed more than $589 billion in value on Monday after its stock dropped around 17 percent.
The plunge cost the company the equivalent value of Netflix’s market cap or the entire GDP of countries such as Ireland, Sweden or Belgium.
Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang personally saw $21 billion wiped off his net worth on Monday due to the stock he holds in the company.
The losses came after investors panicked about the implications of a new Chinese AI that appears to compete with its American rivals but for a fraction of the cost.
DeepSeek’s advances have raised doubts about whether the US will retain its lead in the global race of advancing AI technology.
The Chinese company released its free AI Assistant last week which it says uses less Nvidia chips at a fraction of the cost of current models on the market.
DeepSeek overtook its rival ChatGPT to become the most-downloaded free application available on the Apple Store in the US on Monday.
Nvidia’s stock drop on Monday marks the largest rout in market history
As losses continued the tech giant tried to soothe investor nerves in a statement on Monday afternoon.
‘DeepSeek is an excellent AI advancement and a perfect example of Test Time Scaling,’ a spokesperson for the company said in a statement.
‘DeepSeek’s work illustrates how new models can be created using that technique, leveraging widely-available models and compute that is fully export control compliant.
‘Inference requires significant numbers of NVIDIA GPUs and high-performance networking,’ they added.
Nvidia and other tech stock’s losses weighed down the wider market, with the Nasdaq down 3 percent and the S&P 500 closing 1.5 percent lower.
‘Mondays are typically quiet for stocks when markets are at all-time highs, but not today,’ Bret Kenwell, eToro US Investment Analyst, told DailyMail.com.
‘The AI space can and will continue to evolve, and like we’re seeing today, sometimes those developments will come along quickly.
‘That said, panicking rarely makes for a good investment decision.’
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang lost $21 billion on Monday due to the stock he holds in the company
Nvidia shed more than $589 billion in value on Monday
Monday’s action is a reminder that investors need to stay grounded and disciplined with their portfolios, Kenwell added.
‘While owning individual stocks and sectors is fine, having too much exposure or leverage can deal an unexpected blow seemingly out of nowhere – especially on days like today.’
Tom Stevenson, Investment Director at Fidelity International, added: ‘This development underscores the rapidly shifting dynamics in AI and as the situation unfolds, investors are closely monitoring the implications of this breakthrough on the future of AI technology and the balance of power in the tech industry.’
It comes after top banker Jamie Dimon warned that the US stock market was inflated.
‘Asset prices are kind of inflated, by any measure. They are in the top 10 percent or 15 percent’ of historical valuations, the JPMorgan Chase CEO said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week.
The US stock market gained over 20 percent in 2023 and in 2024 – a remarkable feat it has not achieved since the late 1990s.
