Nvidia shares' 9% recovery Tuesday was the second-best day in terms of market cap added for any company ever—but the company faced another selloff Wednesday.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of this trend is Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), which pioneered the graphics processing units (GPUs) that have become the gold standard for running AI systems. However, reports emerged recently that suggested a Chinese start-up had cracked the code for developing strong AI systems while using inferior chips and novel training processes.

A new Chinese AI model threatens to diminish the need for Nvidia’s most-expensive chips, but some say the concerns are overblown.

Chinese startup DeepSeek has achieved what many (including experts) thought impossible: create a foundational, competitive AI model for just $5.6 million. By comparison, OpenAI’s unreleased GPT-5 (codenamed “Orion”) reportedly requires $500 million for six months of training.

Nvidia staged a moderate rebound on Tuesday, rising as much as 3%, following a 17% drop the prior day. More broadly, major US indexes rallied after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 saw sharp losses on Monday amid concerns over the Chinese AI firm DeepSeek's rapid and seemingly cost-effective advances.