Asia stocks crumble after AI rout rocks US markets

Asian technology markets tumbled on Friday after a sharp US selloff, as investors reassessed the outlook for artificial-intelligence spending and the risk of tighter scrutiny, Business Recorder reported. South Korea’s KOSPI briefly fell more than 8%, prompting a trading halt, and was down 7% after trading resumed; Japan’s Nikkei lost 6%, while Taiwan’s market fell more than 8%.

The Nasdaq dropped 5.5% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 12.2% overnight, while the source said about $3 trillion was erased from S&P 500 companies. Shares of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell 10% and 11.7%, respectively, while TSMC declined 8.5%; European stock futures were also lower. Investors were concerned about returns on large AI investments, financing pressures on smaller infrastructure firms and opposition to new data centres. The report also noted a rise in perceived default risk for SoftBank and CoreWeave.