Unsurprisingly, the news that China’s DeepSeek AI had leapfrogged competitors triggered an investor sell-off. It dragged down Nvidia, the American chipmaker powering the AI revolution, as well as related tech stocks, from Micron and Advanced Micro Devices to manufacturing juggernaut TSMC. There is, after all, some wisdom in worrying that we don’t know who the ultimate winners in the AI race will be.
Markets don’t always exhibit wisdom, however. The DeepSeek news also created a collateral sell-off of all manner of power-related companies, including GE Vernova, Vistra, Siemens Energy, and Schneider Electric. The sell-off even spread to utilities like Constellation Energy and to upstream energy suppliers like natural-gas driller EQT, pipeline companies Williams, and Energy Transfer, and even small modular reactor darlings like Oklo and Nuscale Power.
Some analysts were quick to assert that DeepSeek’s leap in AI efficiency—using far less computing horsepower and thus far less electricity—blows a hole in the widely accepted narrative that AI is power-hungry. Some in the climate community are already signaling relief that AI’s magic could be available with a lighter energy footprint.
Read more in City Journal here.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.
