Technology shares around the world slid on Monday as a surge in popularity of a Chinese discount artificial intelligence model shook investors’ faith in the AI sector’s voracious demand for high-tech chips. Startup DeepSeek has rolled out a free assistant it says uses lower-cost chips and less data, seemingly challenging a widespread bet in financial markets that AI will drive demand along a supply chain from chipmakers to data centres. Nasdaq futures fell over 3%, S&P 500 futures tumbled nearly 2%.