How a Chinese AI Startup Shook Silicon Valley making Nvidia Questioning Its Life Choices!
8 min read
I was attending a lecture in the Vikram Sarabhai Auditorium at Space Applications Centre (SAC, ISRO Ahmedabad) about four years ago (long before COVID) when the esteemed speaker Dr. … (sorry, I forgot his name, I’m bad at remembering names, as you know) enlightened us about AI advancements. He raised serious concerns about AI coming to snatch our jobs.
He gave two specific examples — one where an AI program named ROSS, trained in law, was winning cases better than the finest, high-paid lawyers in the United States, and another where IBM Watson for Oncology was accurately predicting early-stage cancer long before it actually developed.
As someone who had spent years tinkering with circuits without diving too deep into software, I was worried. Not because AI was coming for my ISRO job — hell no! AI still had a long way to go before it could replace the fine art of jugaad we engineers master so well. (Or maybe, just maybe, one day, I’ll get a call from my ISRO friends saying, “Bro, AI just took my job.” Who knows? Life is unpredictable, and so is AI. Never be too overconfident.)
But my real concern was that I didn’t understand anything about this fascinating thing called AI. I sounded like a dumb, ignorant author who could talk about AI’s wonders without understanding how it actually worked. (I later took up a YouTube course on machine learning to fix that but that is a story for some other time.)
Fast Forward to 2023 (or was it 2022? Whenever ChatGPT Took Over the Internet!)
One fine morning, I woke up lazily (as usual), dragging myself out of bed with the enthusiasm of a Monday morning alarm. My sleep schedule is so terrible that even a koala — who sleeps for 22 hours a day — would feel ashamed. 💤
Still half-asleep, I mindlessly scrolled through social media while boarding my train to work, and BOOM — the internet had exploded over some crazy new thing called ChatGPT.
No matter what platform I opened, everyone was talking about it — LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, even those family WhatsApp groups where people usually share “Good Morning” messages with flowers and inspirational quotes.
And as if that wasn’t enough, everyone at my office was testing it out like kids who just discovered a new toy.
So, naturally, I thought, “Mujhe bhi haath ganda karna hai. “(I want to dirty my hands too)
I love free things, and back then, ChatGPT was free (still is for most of us), so I thought — why not?
I started with the most important question:
“ChatGPT, what is your honest opinion about me?”
And let me tell you, it did not disappoint.
It said, “You are a handsome, smart, dashing, intelligent man.”
I mean, it said a lot more than that, but I think you get the point. Then, just as I was enjoying my AI-generated self-esteem boost, it hit me with:
“Okay, enough of bragging. I have more important things to do than feeding your ego.”
Excuse me?! Who gave AI attitude?
Anyway, ChatGPT continued to dominate the news for weeks, months, and now — years later — it’s still making waves. But let’s be honest — ChatGPT wasn’t the only one making headlines.
AI here, AI there, AI Everywhere — And Yes, There’s an AI for That!
Every single day for the past several months, my Instagram reels have been bombarding me with yet another “game-changing” AI:
🔹 AI to clone your voice 🎙️
🔹 AI to create faceless YouTube videos and make thousands of dollars 💰
🔹 AI for this, AI for that…
At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an AI to butter your toast and tell you it loves you. ️
And you know what? There literally is an AI for that.
No, seriously — there’s a website called ThereIsAnAIForThat.com.
Don’t believe me?
Now, this is going to sting for all those startup founders who spend months brainstorming the perfect, sleek, and catchy domain name for their revolutionary company.
Because guess what?
Who the hell on earth thought “ThereIsAnAIForThat.com” would be a good domain name?
Sounds like something someone came up with at 2 AM after three Red Bulls.
And yet, here’s the kicker — this ridiculously long and boringly obvious website gets organic traffic of 1.3 MILLION visitors and has a traffic value of $227K per month.
💸 That’s right. A simple site that just suggests different AI tools is making six figures.
Still don’t trust me?
Well, here’s a screenshot from Ahrefs proving it. (And no, I’m not an affiliate… though I wish I was!)
AI Boom: Some Survive, Some Vanish, and Some Make OpenAI Scream
Every day, a new AI makes headlines.
Some come, some survive, and some get lost in the abyss of the internet, never to be heard from again — like that one NFT project your friend wouldn’t shut up about in 2021. I explored some, dumped most of them.
These AIs were like tiny waves — appearing momentarily before vanishing without making any noise.
But then, January 2025 happened. An AI hit the shore so hard that OpenAI screamed, and the stock market trembled.
Yes, I’m Talking About DeepSeek — The AI That Gave OpenAI Nightmares
DeepSeek — a Chinese AI company founded in 2023 and based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang — burst onto the scene, making waves bigger than a startup founder at a TED Talk.
Their mission? To build open-source Large Language Models (LLMs) that could rival Western AI giants. (Source: Wikipedia — because let’s be real, I refuse to cite properly in a non-PhD article. If it’s good enough for last-minute college assignments, it’s good enough for this.)
How DeepSeek Nearly Broke the Stock Market
Imagine this:
You wake up, feeling like an AI stock market genius, ready to post a self-congratulatory LinkedIn update on how you’ve been “bullish on Nvidia since 2022.”
But instead of celebrating, you see this:
“Chinese AI Startup Wipes $593 Billion Off AI Market in One Day!”
As news of DeepSeek’s breakthrough spread, Wall Street did what it does best — panic.
And Nvidia stocks? They did the Macarena — but in reverse.
Silicon Valley’s Existential Crisis
Silicon Valley VCs — the same people who had been throwing money at anything labeled ‘AI’ — suddenly started rethinking their life choices.
Meanwhile, tech CEOs across San Francisco were quietly updating their LinkedIn bios to:
“Open to Work | AI Thought Leader | Seeking Revolutionary Opportunities”
Meanwhile, Microsoft execs — who had pumped billions into OpenAI — were seen ‘casually’ researching ways to back out of contracts.
Why? Because DeepSeek Just Broke All the “Rules” of AI Dominance
For years, the unspoken rule of AI supremacy was simple:
“The company with the most GPUs wins.”
But DeepSeek waltzed in and flipped the script. Suddenly, the financial world had some unsettling questions:
If AI becomes cheaper and faster, do we still need to spend billions on high-end GPUs?
Is Nvidia still the king, or is this the beginning of the AI hardware apocalypse?
Are OpenAI and Microsoft sweating yet?
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Very much.
🌊 The AI Race Reminds Me of the Wavelet Fantasy (2012 Edition)
Back in 2012, when I secured my M.Tech seat at IIT Bombay, a Ph.D. friend approached me for research topic suggestions on wavelets.
I asked, “Why wavelets?” — despite having audited an entire Wavelet Transform course at IITB (thank god I didn’t credit it).
His response? “Wavelets are the next big thing!”
There was an unspoken rule in academia back then:
🔹 If your Ph.D. involved wavelets, journal publications and a Ph.D. degree were guaranteed.
Fast forward to today, and we see the same fantasy among AI investors:
🔹 If your startup doesn’t have AI, it isn’t sexy. You won’t get investment.
DeepSeek’s market crash is a wake-up call for these investors who understand only two letters: A & I — without knowing their true significance.
Meanwhile, OpenAI sat in the VIP section, pretending not to be worried — but totally checking the rearview mirror. 👀
What Happens When You Shake Up the AI World?
With DeepSeek making headlines and OpenAI nervously checking its rearview mirror, the inevitable happened — comparisons flooded the internet.
Suddenly, every tech writer (including me) found the perfect excuse to escape writer’s block and start typing away like their lives depended on it.
Tech bros, AI researchers, and YouTubers who specialize in “10-minute tech breakdowns” started asking the million-dollar question:
“Is DeepSeek actually better than ChatGPT?”
The Real Kicker: Free vs. Paid AI
But for me, the real shocker wasn’t just about performance — it was about pricing.
DeepSeek was offering everything that ChatGPT was charging for.
So naturally, people were super excited — not because they were passionate about AI advancements, but because they could finally cancel their ChatGPT subscription and use that saved money for more coffee.
Meanwhile, stock market analysts had their own crisis:
Is Nvidia stock overvalued?
Even if it’s fairly valued, will it survive if DeepSeek reduces AI chip demand?
And in the most ironic twist ever, guess what they were using to predict the outcome of this AI war?
– AI itself.
It’s like asking a race runner who’s going to win the race. 🏃♂️💨
NVIDIA’s Counterattack?
At this point, I’m pretty sure the brains at NVIDIA are in shock — or already planning their counteroffensive with new chips engineered specifically to handle DeepSeek.
Who knows? I don’t have any insiders at NVIDIA, despite having 1,000+ connections on LinkedIn. 😆
But time will tell.
What’s Next? AI vs. AI Battle Begins!
But for now, let’s get back to the real hot topic:
How does DeepSeek actually stack up against ChatGPT?
Well, I did my own research (yes, I actually did) and cross-checked it with expert opinions.
But I know you’re already tired of my nonsense and barely surviving my PJ-level humor.
So, let’s save the heavy AI battle tactics for the next post — appropriately titled:
AI Battle Royale: ChatGPT vs. DeepSeek — Who Wins the Ultimate Showdown?
And if that wasn’t enough torture, I have one more post lined up:
Dear AI Association: A Formal Complaint from OpenAI About This DeepSeek Nonsense.
May God give you the strength to survive my PJs. Amen. 😆
📩 Want More Laughs, Growth, and Insider Secrets?
Subscribe to The Haha Growth Report—the only newsletter that combines humor, motivation, and exclusive content so secret, even my dog doesn’t know about it. 🐶 Get tips, tricks, and juicy insights you won’t find on Medium, LinkedIn, or even that shady corner of the internet where people still argue about the Earth being flat. [Sign up now!]
🤓 Read One Article and Still Hungry?
Binge my other masterpieces before they become required reading in future history books. Check out my other articles on Medium, LinkedIn, or my website—because knowledge is power, and laughing while learning is a superpower.
☕ Support My Caffeine Addiction (And Future Articles)!
If this article made you chuckle, nod in agreement, or dramatically rethink your life choices, consider buying me a coffee! ☕ It fuels my writing, keeps my humor intact, and prevents me from selling my books for snacks. Buy me a coffee here! 🚀