A small group of seven companies, including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, have become so dominant that they alone contributed to more than half of the S&P 500’s

SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son is shifting his focus away from investments in China and toward the US, as seen with his involvement with President Donald Trump and the recently announced Stargate.

SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI, which would make it the company’s biggest backer, CNBC has confirmed.

Shares of Japanese chip-related firms were feeling the heat on Monday. Today’s slump comes as Chinese AI startup DeepSeek gained traction with its updated AI model, raising fears about potential challenges to US technological dominance.

Chinese startup DeepSeek has shaken the belief that only a few firms with huge budgets can compete in the artificial intelligence field — potentially challenging an investment case that rewarded the biggest players with rich valuations.

Arm China plans to tap Chen Feng (陳鋒), a former executive at Fuzhou, Fujian Province-based chipmaker Rockchip Electronics Co (瑞芯微電子), according to people familiar with the matter. The appointment will be made after this week’s Lunar New Year holiday, they said.

DeepSeek threatens to disrupt the AI sector in a similar way to how Chinese companies have already upended industries such as EVs and mining.

Nasdaq futures slumped and technology shares slid in Japan on Monday as surging popularity of a Chinese discount artificial intelligence model wobbled investors' faith in the profitability of AI and the sector's voracious demand for high-tech chips.

In international markets, chipmaking and electrification companies saw pressure on the fears over the DeepSeek AI service. SoftBank -- the company that said it would fund up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure as well as the main shareholder of microchip designer ARM -- saw its stock dive 8%.

President Donald Trump has only recently announced the Stargate initiative, claiming it to be “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history”. According to him, the

OpenAI — the company behind ChatGPT and a big part of Stargate — is partnering with the U.S. National Laboratories. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly spoke with OpenAI's Chris LeHane, here are the highlights.