On 27 January, the humongous valuations of US tech companies involved with artificial intelligence (AI) were suddenly called into question, when it was reported that a previously-little-known AI app from China had become the most-downloaded free app on the US App Store. That meant booting ChatGPT off the top spot, despite a smaller budget and restricted access to the most advanced chips from the likes of Nvidia.
Cue widespread interest in buying DeepSeek shares. But, it’s not yet a publicly-traded company, and is still privately-owned. So you can’t invest in DeepSeek just yet. However, the surge in popularity with the release of its supposedly cheap DeepSeek V3 large language model (LLM) has created investing opportunities nonetheless. We’ll pin those down in this guide.
Tech companies whose share prices fell in the sell-off
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How to invest
Open a share dealing platform. If you don’t have one already, the first step in investing in one of these stocks is to open a share trading account. Choose a platform that suits your needs, whether it’s one with robust research tools, low fees, or a user-friendly interface.
Fund your account. Once your account is set up, deposit funds. You can do that via a bank transfer, debit card, or any other means allowed by your platform.
Research and choose your “DeepSeek effect” stocks. Research the best stocks (or funds) for your portfolio, and then search for them on your chosen platform by company name or ticker symbol.
Buy shares. Once you’ve found the stock(s), select the amount you want to invest and create an order to buy shares. And just like that, you’re now officially an investor in the AI sector.
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What is DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI firm that uses open source technology to create its LLM (ChatGPT is an example of another popular LLM). Open source just means that the coding and programming can be viewed by anyone, inlcuding developers and researchers – which helps to add a level of transparency.
The reason DeepSeek has been hitting the headlines and growing in popularity is because its latest LLM DeepSeek V3 has deemed to be comparable to ChatGPT in terms of performance. But, what’s so interesting is that it has supposedley been created at a fraction of the cost, being trained for roughly $6 million (whereas ChatGPT cost upwards of $100 million).
Our expert says: Is DeepSeek better than ChatGPT?
"DeepSeek’s V3 LLM isn’t necessarily better than OpenAI’s ChatGPT, however reports suggest that it is pretty comparable in terms of performance and speed.
However, what’s interesting about this and the reason everyone has got their knickers ina twist is due to the lower costs involved. Although, it’s worth keeping in mind, these extremely low cost figures haven’t yet been independently verified.
We’re likely to see OpenAI fight back with a vengeance and it’s going to have to if it wants to justify its high costs if equivalent technology can be created in China for just a slither of the cost."
At the moment, you can’t buy shares in DeepSeek or OpenAI. However, the AI tech that’s being released is still likely to have an impact on the stock market and firms linked with any part of the AI ecosystem and supply chain could see periods of volatility as these firms battle it out.
It’s early days for DeepSeek and it’s hard to gauge how successful the firm will be, but it goes to show that the stock market is very sensitive at the moment and it could be a sign that we may get some dips and possible buying opportunities over the coming months and years.
George is a deputy editor at Finder. He has previously written for The Motley Fool UK, Nasdaq, Freetrade, Investing in the Web, MoneyMagpie, Online Mortgage Advisor, Wealth, and Compare Forex Brokers. He's focused on making personal finance and investing engaging for everyone. To do this he draws from previous work and his Level 4 Diploma for Financial Advisers (DipFA), sharing what he’s learnt. When he’s not geeking out about money, you’ll find him playing sports and staying active. See full bio
George's expertise
George has written 198 Finder guides across topics including:
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