DeepSeek Is Building Its Own AI Chip – And It Just Sent NVIDIA Shares Falling
On the morning of July 7, 2026, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters something that moved markets within hours of publication. DeepSeek — the Chinese AI company that shocked Silicon Valley eighteen months ago with a model that matched GPT-4 at a fraction of the cost — is now building its own AI chip. By the time US markets opened, NVIDIA had fallen 1.5% in premarket trading. Micron Technology was down 4.7%. Western Digital had dropped 6.3%. SanDisk fell 4.6%. A single Reuters exclusive, citing unnamed sources, wiped billions from the market capitalization of the companies that have powered the AI revolution. That reaction tells you something important — not just about DeepSeek, but about how fragile the assumptions underlying the current AI chip market actually are. What DeepSeek Is Building — And Why the Distinction Matters The chip DeepSeek is reportedly developing is not a training chip. This point matters enormously and gets lost in most coverage of the story. T...