After the arrival of a less costly A.I. model from China, U.S. markets and academics are wrestling with the ultimate economic value of the technology.

A.I. chatbots are fun, sometimes even useful and, until recently, endowed with the uncanny ability to mesmerize investors and fuel the U.S. stock market.

But the excellent performance of a new, relatively cheap artificial intelligence engine from a Chinese start-up, DeepSeek, has perturbed the market and complicated the A.I. story.

Investors are re-evaluating prominent companies swept up in A.I. fever, including Nvidia, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla and the private start-up OpenAI. The notion that full-blown superhuman intelligence is imminent has spurred the-sky-is-the-limit valuations, as well as concerns about the political and social risks posed by advanced intelligence.

One immediate question: Is the main approach to developing A.I. in the United States — pouring billions of dollars into chips and infrastructure — worth the expenditure for all companies if

Keep reading this article on The New York Times Your Money.