One of the biggest stories from last week underscores just how critical AI has become—not just for Silicon Valley, but for America’s national security.

Chinese startup DeepSeek said it trained its AI model for less than $6 million, compared to the billions of dollars U.S. tech companies are spending. Nvidia stock plummeted in one trading session on concern that certain customers may opt for cheaper AI chips.

Nvidia's stock value has declined sharply in recent days following the emergence of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, resulting in a substantial decrease in its market capitalization. However, semiconductor industry insiders suggest that DeepSeek could accelerate the adoption of AI technologies,

DeepSeek built a competing large language model (LLM) to OpenAI's ChatGPT, but claims that it trained the model with old Nvidia processors that aren't widely used anymore. This news has shellshocked technologists and analysts across Wall Street because if DeepSeek's methods of building highly capable AI can be done using legacy hardware,

If China's DeepSeek AI efficiency claims are to be believed, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) may suffer a substantial valuation reset with reduced demand for GPUs. Meta (NASDAQ: META) might benefit from this development by drastically cutting its planned $50 billion AI infrastructure investment if DeepSeek proves cost-effective.