Retail investors bought a net $562 million of Nvidia stock on Monday, the largest single-day inflow in at least 10 years, VandaTrack said.

Global investors are worried the emergence of a low-cost Chinese AI model will threaten the dominance of AI leaders.

Despite the negative financial impact, Nvidia praised DeepSeek’s breakthrough. “DeepSeek is an excellent A.I. advancement and a perfect example of test time scaling,” a company spokesperson told Observer in a statement.

Organised AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of countries including Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, the source said. The Commerce Department and DeepSeek did not immediately return requests for comment.

Nvidia stock jumped in Europe on Wednesday, suggesting shares in the company at the heart of the artificial intelligence markets boom may recover further after a steep drop this week triggered by the rise of China's DeepSeek AI tool.