By Blessing Nweke
Shares of major semiconductor companies fell sharply across the United States and Asia on Tuesday as investor concerns over the artificial intelligence sector triggered a broader technology sell-off.
South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index briefly halted trading after plunging 8% under the country’s circuit breaker mechanism, which is designed to slow panic selling. After the 20-minute suspension was lifted, the index extended losses to around 10%, reflecting mounting pressure on technology stocks.
Leading the decline were South Korean chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, with both companies dropping about 12%. The Kospi has now been halted eight times this year and has lost roughly one-third of its value since reaching a peak in mid-June, despite more than doubling earlier in the year.
The downturn followed a weak session on Wall Street, where AI chip giant Nvidia fell 5%, surrendering its position as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company to Apple. Nvidia’s decline came after reports that the company is in discussions to contribute approximately $250 billion to an OpenAI-backed data center project. Neither Nvidia nor OpenAI immediately commented on the reports.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 also declined nearly 3.8% as technology stocks came under pressure across the region.
Market analysts say investors are becoming increasingly cautious over whether massive spending on AI infrastructure will generate enough profits to justify current valuations. Concerns have also grown over rising competition from Chinese chipmakers.
Adding to those concerns, Chinese memory chip manufacturer ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) made a spectacular debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Monday, with its shares surging nearly 470%. The company said it will use most of the IPO proceeds to expand production capacity and strengthen research and development, underscoring China’s ambitions to compete more aggressively in the global semiconductor industry.
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