In a matter of days, DeepSeek proved to be so popular as to climb to the top of Apple's App Store, surpassing OpenAI's ChatGPT as the most downloaded app. But for owners of Nvidia stock, and stock traders in general, DeepSeek is on track of becoming a black swan — an unexpected event with extreme consequences.

DeepSeek topped the Apple App Store chart and sparked fears the Chinese company was quickly catching up with OpenAI's ChatGPT while costing far less.

Chinese startup DeepSeek has debuted an AI app that challenges OpenAI's ChatGPT and other U.S. rivals, sending a shock through Wall Street.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq index lost nearly 4 percent in early trading Monday, with chipmaker Nvidia down nearly 12 percent.

The Chinese AI service has Wall Street worried that it will be cheaper than expected to develop models. But as chip stocks sink, some analysts see a silver lining.

Barrett Woodside, co-founder of the San Francisco AI hardware company Positron, said he and his colleagues have been abuzz about DeepSeek.

Huge U.S. technology companies that soared amid an artificial intelligence frenzy last year are getting pummeled after a little talked about Chinese startup demonstrated a chatbot that it says rivals versions from OpenAI and Google,

DeepSeek released an open-source artificial intelligence model in December after saying that it took only two months and less than $6 million to create.