Nasdaq futures slumped and technology shares slid in Japan on Monday as surging popularity of a Chinese discount artificial intelligence model wobbled investors' faith in the profitability of AI and the sector's voracious demand for high-tech chips.

China's homegrown AI model, DeepSeek, has surged to the top of the free app download charts in the United States region of the Apple App Store, surpassing the once-dominant ChatGPT. It also secured the number one spot on the free app rankings in China.

In international markets, chipmaking and electrification companies saw pressure on the fears over the DeepSeek AI service. SoftBank -- the company that said it would fund up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure as well as the main shareholder of microchip designer ARM -- saw its stock dive 8%.

Nasdaq futures have plunged as the launch of China's DeepSeek AI model last week shook investor confidence in Nvidia's prospects.

In 2023, smartphones-to-silicon conglomerate Huawei quietly released its flagship Mate 60 Pro handset. The launch, while muted, was worth celebrating in the People’s Republic: the device featured a made-in-China chip that had previously seemed out of reach amid crippling U.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently visited China to celebrate Chinese New Year with employees and reaffirm the company’s commitment

DeepSeek has open-sourced its flagship models along with six smaller variants, ranging from 1.5 billion to 70 billion parameters.

Meanwhile, a slew of other tech executives including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are reportedly set to attend the events on Monday.

In the Vulkan test, it scored 261,836 points. This is about 22% better than the RTX 4080. Not bad, right? But in OpenCL it scores 256,138 points, just a 6.7% improvement.

Australian shares are poised for a cautious start as investors worry about China’s AI progress, the Federal Reserve meeting and key local inflation data.

DeepSeek is the first AI model coming out of China that has got people in the US excited because it claims to be better than ChatGPT. Is It true?