The January DeepSeek Impact
Just days before the meeting, Nvidia's stock had plunged from $142.62 on January 24 to $118.52 on January 27—a 16.9% drop—after DeepSeek's announcement. The Chinese startup's breakthrough, which utilized Nvidia's H800 chips, wiped nearly $600 billion from Nvidia's market value.
Portfolio Movements
Amid these geopolitical tensions, a February 14 SEC filing revealed Nvidia's strategic realignment:
- New positions in WeRide (up 83.46%) and Nebius Group
- Exits from SoundHound (down 28.10%) and Serve Robotics (down 39.57%)
- Reduced Arm Holdings stake from 1.96 million to 1.1 million shares
Huang's Market Response
CEO Jensen Huang publicly addressed the DeepSeek situation, stating the market "got it wrong" about its impact. "It's making everybody take notice that there are opportunities to have the models be far more efficient than what we thought was possible," he emphasized, while maintaining that AI reasoning remains compute-intensive.
The Stakes Ahead
As Nvidia approaches its February 26 earnings report, the intersection of geopolitics, AI competition, and market dynamics has never been more critical. With congressional leaders pushing for tighter controls and DeepSeek announcing five new open-source repositories, Huang's response to these converging challenges could reshape not just Nvidia's future, but the entire landscape of global AI leadership.