DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, is sending shock waves through the U.S. tech sector by demonstrating its latest AI assistant, which achieves performance comparable to or even surpassing some of the world's best chatbots.

Leading the swing were Apple and Nvidia, both Silicon Valley giants with significant dealings in China, as shares of Apple went from as much as a 4% morning gain to a 2% daily loss by late afternoon, and Nvidia stock turned what was as much as a 3% gain to a 3% daily drop.

DeepSeek stunned the tech world with the release of its R1 "reasoning" model, matching or exceeding OpenAI's reasoning model for a fraction of the cost.

Nvidia stock surged as the AI chipmaker began to recover from a massive decline the prior day that shaved nearly $600 billion off its market cap.

Stocks rose Friday as Apple led a broad rally following a strong investor reaction to its quarterly earnings report and the market closes out a whirlwind week highlighted by Nvidia’s record-breaking losses in reaction to China’s DeepSeek cheaper AI model and a flurry of earnings reports.