ASML, the chip manufacturing equipment maker, said orders for its most advanced machines surged last quarter, suggesting producers of artificial intelligence processors were increasing capacity before China’s DeepSeek this week triggered a panic over future demand.

Netherlands-based ASML lost its title as Europe’s most valuable tech company on Monday when it was caught up in a stock market panic over DeepSeek that also wiped hundreds of billions of dollars from the value of Nvidia, Broadcom and other chipmakers.

The low-cost techniques used by the Chinese company to create a breakthrough new AI model suggested that big advances could be made without the need for the vast investment in chips and computing power that US rivals such as OpenAI, Meta and Elon Musk’s xAI have planned.