Health AI champion Nvidia endures record slide amid Chinese progress
Nvidia, a lead player in advancing the use of AI in healthcare, lost US$589bn in market capitalisaton yesterday – the greatest one-day value loss of any firm on record.
The slide came after news of Chinese AI company DeepSeek’s latest developments.
It also uses less advanced semiconductor chips and, crucially, cost significantly less to build than global counterparts, at a stated spend of US$5.5m on Nvidia’s technology – although this figure was said by some experts to be significantly under-estimated.
DeepSeek, however, challenges the belief that big budgets and the very best semiconductor chips are mandatory requirements in achieving progress in AI development.
Its success suggests budget limitations and export challenges experienced in accessing chips may not be the barriers they once were to AI advancement.
Nvidia’s share price plunge meant it was no longer the world’s most valuable company, with its valuation falling from US$3.5tn to US$2.9tn, below that of Apple and Microsoft.
The convergence of AI, accelerated computing and biological data is turning healthcare into the largest technology industry, it said.
Healthcare leaders IQVIA, Illumina, Mayo Clinic and Arc Institute, are all using Nvidia technologies to develop solutions that will help advance human health, it reported.
These solutions include AI agents that can speed clinical trials by reducing administrative burden, AI models that learn from biology instruments to advance drug discovery and digital pathology, and physical AI robots for surgery, patient monitoring and operations.
“AI offers an exceptional opportunity to advance healthcare and life sciences with tools that help providers detect diseases earlier and discover new treatments faster,” said Kimberly Powell, vice president of healthcare at Nvidia.
