U.S. tech stocks are under collective pressure. Is the market replaying the DeepSeek-style shock script?

The US tech sector extended its decline this week, with the immediate trigger being OpenAI’s potential IPO delay, but analysts point out that Zhipu’s low-cost AI model may be the deeper threat—not only impacting OpenAI and Anthropic’s enterprise clients, but also shaking the optimistic outlook for AI infrastructure spending.

According to a previous article by Wall Street News, OpenAI is considering postponing its initial public offering plans, partly due to SpaceX’s lackluster stock performance after going public, coupled with increased volatility in tech stocks recently. This news served as the direct catalyst for the sell-off.

However, in a client report citing industry sources, Jefferies strategist Christopher Wood noted that Zhipu’s GLM 5.2 model “performs nearly as well as Anthropic’s, but costs only one-quarter per token compared to the latter.” He characterized the past week as “another DeepSeek moment.”

During Friday’s US trading session, Micron Technology’s stock fell over 7%, AMD and Intel both dropped more than 4%, and Oracle hit a new low after a cumulative decline of 19% over the past five trading days.

Zhipu’s Low-Cost Model Disrupts Frontier AI Pricing System

Zhipu’s GLM 5.2 model is considered a core variable behind the tech sector’s recent pressure. According to a Jefferies analyst report on Thursday, the model not only closely matches Anthropic’s flagship product in performance but also offers privacy protection comparable to top-tier models.

Morgan Stanley traders noted on Thursday that Zhipu’s new model demonstrates “extremely strong coding capabilities” and pointed out that it poses direct competition to the enterprise market. They stated:

“The trend of enterprises and hyperscalers shifting to lower-cost models is more of a recalibration of willingness to pay for AI than a decline in AI demand.”

Deutsche Bank analyst Jim Reid also mentioned similar pressure in a client report dated June 18, noting that DeepSeek’s V4-Pro model

“performs similarly to Anthropic’s flagship Claude Fable 5 in about 90% of daily tasks, but costs roughly 1.5% as much.”

Enterprise AI Spending Landscape Accelerates Restructuring

AI pricing pressure has already triggered a chain reaction on the enterprise side. In recent months, multiple companies have begun cutting AI spending or exceeding their original budgets, with the token pricing of high-end AI models becoming an increasing pain point for enterprises.

Jefferies analysts further pointed out that if low-cost models also offer reliable privacy protection, enterprises have the incentive to move AI workloads back from cloud providers to their own servers, fundamentally changing the investment logic for AI infrastructure.

“The demand structure is clearly shifting toward lower-cost models,” wrote a Morgan Stanley trader in a report. This trend places valuation pressure on stocks related to Nvidia’s supply chain, cloud computing platforms, and data center construction.

OpenAI and Anthropic IPO Outlook Darkens

The rumors of OpenAI delaying its IPO, combined with intensifying competition, have made the market more cautious about the valuation expectations of these two leading AI companies.

Analysts worry that if enterprise clients continue to migrate to lower-cost models, OpenAI and Anthropic’s revenue growth prospects before their IPOs could be eroded. A potential price war between the two may further compress their respective valuation spaces before going public.

The continuous emergence of cheaper, open-source AI models with comparable performance is seen as a more profound threat to the proposed IPOs of these two companies and to the entire tech sector. The market’s previous assumption of “astronomical growth” in AI infrastructure spending is now facing pressure for reassessment.

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