US tech firms exposed to big artificial intelligence (AI) investments are seeing their shares take a hammering over the emergence of a low-cost Chinese competitor.

The likes of Nvidia, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Alphabet all saw their stocks come under pressure as investors questioned whether their share prices, already widely viewed as overblown following an AI-led frenzy, were justified.

Some market analysts put the combined losses in market value, across US tech, at more than $1trn (£802bn).

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Leading AI chipmaker Nvidia’s shares bled 11% in early Wall Street dealing alone, while the tech-focused Nasdaq slid by more than 3%.

The declines were all put down to the emergence late last week of a Chinese AI chatbot that uses lower-cost chips.

Start-up DeepSeek launched a free assistant that, it said, uses less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent players’ own large language assistants.

Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, said the claims had placed in doubt the market’s AI-led dominance of the past two years that have seen AI-linked stocks repeatedly hit new highs.

He said of the repercussions: “It could mean less demand for chips, less need for a massive build-out of power production to fuel the models, and less need for large-scale data centres.

“However, it could also mean that AI becomes more accessible and help kickstart the development of a wide array of useful applications,” he added.

DeepSeek’s AI assistant is certainly proving popular, becoming the top-rated free application available on Apple’s App Store in the US after, overtaking ChatGPT.

It has even attracted praise from US rivals for the assistant’s performance, despite questions continuing to swirl over the 2023-founded company’s technological development.

It was achieved despite tech export controls, designed to protect US patents, imposed on China by president Joe Biden in 2021.

The share price movements will likely be of concern to his successor in the White House, Donald Trump, who has long accused Chinese firms of profiting from US technology.

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It also remains to be seen whether he will see the competition as aggressive towards US firms, having already indicated he is minded to allow Chinese-owned TikTok to escape a US ban but through shared ownership to help offset national security concerns.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: “The US government – both under Donald Trump and previously under Joe Biden – have been trying to stop China from accessing Western technology.

“That strategy might have backfired as it looks to have encouraged China to ramp up efforts to build its own technology and we’re now seeing evidence that the country is making waves.”

Market experts said AI customers could ultimately benefit from a share price bounce once the market settled due to improved competition bringing down prices.

Away from the United States, another company licking its wounds on Monday was SoftBank, the Japanese investment firm.

Its shares were 8% down on the day, erasing all the gains seen since last week when Mr Trump announced SoftBank was part of an investment of up to $500bn (£400bn) in US AI infrastructure.

The King has warned of the “dangerous re-emergence of antisemitism” and met with Holocaust survivors on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

During a visit to the Jewish Community Centre of Krakow – which he opened in 2008 – King Charles said Holocaust Memorial Day “is a moment when we recall the depths to which humanity can sink when evil is allowed to flourish”.

The King then joined survivors and other dignitaries at Auschwitz, marking the first time that a serving British monarch has visited the concentration camp where more than a million people were murdered at the hands of the Nazi regime.

Before he laid a candle as the UK’s representative at the ceremony, three Holocaust survivors shared their stories, with Tova Friedman saying she felt it was “normal” that “as a Jewish child they all had to die”.

Janina Iwanska also said: “It is difficult to calculate all the people killed here.”

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Kate, the Princess of Wales, will also join Prince William at a Holocaust commemoration ceremony in London later on Monday.

The royals will pay their respects alongside Sir Keir Starmer and hear survivors and campaigners speak.

‘Remembering the evils of the past remains vital’

Speaking in Krakow earlier on Monday, the King said: “In a world that remains full of turmoil and strife, and has witnessed the dangerous re-emergence of antisemitism, there can be no more important message.

“As the number of Holocaust survivors regrettably diminishes with the passage of time, the responsibility of remembrance rests far heavier on our shoulders and on those of generations yet unborn.

“The act of remembering the evils of the past remains a vital task, and in so doing, we inform our present and shape our future.

“Here in Krakow, from the ashes of the Holocaust, the Jewish community has been reborn.”

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The King went on to say there is “no greater symbol” of that rebirth than the centre he was speaking at.

“In a post-Holocaust world, projects such as this, this centre, is how we recover our faith in humanity,” he said.

“They also show us there is much work still to be done,” he said, adding that it’s important not just to remember the past, “but to use it to inspire us to build a kinder and more compassionate world for future generations”.

“This remains the sacred task of us all,” he added.

Later, the King joined world leaders like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Auschwitz, as those who lived through the Holocaust shared their stories of survival.

‘I remember watching children driven to their deaths’

Survivor Janina Iwanska said that while the camp was originally for political prisoners, in March 1942, “the operators of the camp started building gas chambers and the crematorium”.

“It was no longer a POW camp, a Soviet camp – this is when the killing machine started its operation,” she added.

“It is difficult to calculate all the people killed here.”

Fellow survivor Tova Friedman also told those in attendance: “I remember as a five-year-old child watching from my hiding place as all my little friends were rounded up and driven to their deaths while the heartbreaking cries of their parents fell on deaf ears.

“After all the children were gone and the courtyard was empty – I thought ‘am I the only Jewish child left in the world?'”

She recalled that while held in Auschwitz, she “was being beaten mercilessly by a guard for fidgeting” after “not being able to stand still for hours,” as she looked into her mother’s eyes.

“She was pleading with me ‘don’t cry’. And I didn’t. At five I had the rebellion in me that I would not let them know the pain they are inflicting on me,” Ms Friedman added.

More than a million people were murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp during the Second World War, most of whom were Jews but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and other nationalities.

Six million Jewish men, women and children died during the Holocaust.

Commemorations at the former death camp began earlier when Poland’s President Andrzej Duda joined Auschwitz survivors laying wreaths and candles at the site.

Their tributes were left at a reconstruction of the Death Wall, the site where several thousand people, mainly Polish political prisoners, were executed.

In a speech, Mr Duda said “we Poles are the guardians of memory today” and had a duty to maintain the life stories of the survivors.