China's DeepSeek AI is leading investors to question Silicon Valley's dominance in AI. The Hangzhou-based company supposedly spent only £4.49 million to develop the chatbot, compared to billions spent by leading US AI companies. The DeepSeek AI chatbot challenges Silicon Valley's narrative that high capital spending is necessary to build the most advanced AI models.
As a result, US and European stocks led by AI giants were trading in red on 27th January, wiping out £86.7 billion from the fortunes of the world's 500 richest people, especially billionaires whose wealth is linked to AI.
