The next phase of the AI boom

The technology is about to become far more widespread, says Dan McEvoy. Here’s how to profit

Futuristic AI human brain machine
(Image credit: Getty Images)

For a brief moment in January, it looked as though the era of US dominance in technology was over. DeepSeek, a Chinese generative artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, shot to the top of the US app-store install list. DeepSeek was not only popular, but could also perform on a par with competitors from OpenAI and Google. Its developers claimed it could do so for just $6 million in training costs and without relying on the cutting-edge Nvidia chips that have driven hundreds of billions of dollars in capital expenditure (capex) in the West.

That money suddenly looked very badly spent, and Nvidia – a priced-for-perfection market darling – suddenly seemed to have lost any justification for its $3 trillion-plus valuation. Nvidia’s market capitalisation fell $589 billion in a day, a record for the biggest valuation decline in stock market history. Within weeks, though, most of these losses had been recovered, and while Nvidia’s stock has fallen further since, that has far more to do with turbulent trade policy in the White House than with doubts over the future of AI.

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Dan McEvoy
Senior Writer

Dan is a financial journalist who, prior to joining MoneyWeek, spent five years writing for OPTO, an investment magazine focused on growth and technology stocks, ETFs and thematic investing.

Before becoming a writer, Dan spent six years working in talent acquisition in the tech sector, including for credit scoring start-up ClearScore where he first developed an interest in personal finance.

Dan studied Social Anthropology and Management at Sidney Sussex College and the Judge Business School, Cambridge University. Outside finance, he also enjoys travel writing, and has edited two published travel books.