Trump says DeepSeek's AI should be 'wakeup call' to US

US President Donald Trump says Chinese startup DeepSeek's technology should act as spur for American companies and said it was good that companies in China have come up with a cheaper, faster method of artificial intelligence.

"The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company should be a wakeup call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win," Trump said in Florida.

Investors sold technology stocks across the globe on Monday over concerns the emergence of a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model would threaten the dominance of the current US-based AI leaders.

"I've been reading about China and some of the companies in China, one in particular coming up with a faster method of AI and much less expensive method, and that's good because you don't have to spend as much money. I view that as a positive, as an asset," Trump said.

"I view that as a positive because you'll be doing that too, so you won't be spending as much, and you'll get the same result, hopefully," he said.

Trump said Chinese leaders had told him the United States had the most brilliant scientists in the world, and he indicated that if Chinese industry could come up with cheaper AI technology, US companies would follow.

"We always have the ideas. We're always first. So I would say that's a positive that could be very much a positive development. So instead of spending billions and billions, you'll spend less, and you'll come up with, hopefully, the same solution," Trump said.

Global investors dumped tech stocks on Monday as they worried that the emergence of a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model would threaten the dominance of AI leaders like Nvidia, evaporating $593 billion (AED2,178 billion) of the chipmaker's market value, a record one-day loss for any company on Wall Street.

Last week, Chinese startup DeepSeek launched a free AI assistant that it says uses less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent services. By Monday, the assistant had overtaken US rival ChatGPT in downloads from Apple's app store.

This led the tech-heavy Nasdaq to fall 3.1 per cent on Monday. Nvidia was the Nasdaq's biggest drag, with its shares tumbling just under 17 per cent and marking a record one-day loss in market capitalisation for a Wall Street stock, according to LSEG data.

Nvidia's market-cap loss on Monday was more than double the previous one-day record, set by Nvidia last September.