The sell-off in AI stocks has intensified, driving South Korea’s stock market down to its lowest level in three months.
Investors continued to ditch chip stocks on Tuesday, amid rising concerns about the huge amount of borrowing among AI companies to fund their datacentre expansion plans.
The South Korean semiconductor companies SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics fell by more than 10%, dragging the country’s Kospi share index down by 11.5% to its lowest point since mid-April.
US chip stocks extended their recent losses when Wall Street opened on Tuesday, with Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Sandisk, Western Digital Corp and Seagate Technology all down by more than 4%. The Nasdaq 100 index of leading tech stocks fell nearly 2% and is more than 10% below its early June record high – the technical definition of a market correction.
Analysts attributed the sell-off to renewed worries over AI investment spending, and competition from cheaper Chinese companies, after a report by the Information that China has begun mass production of homegrown deep ultraviolet (DUV) chip-making tools.
“We believe the market was likely spooked by the progress of China’s chip-making equipment capabilities, and was worried that this progress would threaten the competitive position of global chip making and chip equipment leaders,” said Jing Jie Yu, an equity analyst at Morningstar, adding that the sell-off was “largely a kneejerk reaction and overdone”.
On Monday, shares in the Chinese memory chip maker CXMT rose by 466% when it floated on the Shanghai stock exchange, underlining China’s drive to create its own AI supply chain.
Investors may also be growing jittery about the “circular funding” at the heart of the AI industry, through which artificial intelligence firms finance one another.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia was in discussions with OpenAI about providing $250bn (£188bn) for a massive datacentre project in Ohio. Backing from Nvidia, which has an investment grade credit rating, could make it less expensive to raise funding for the project.
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News of the talks knocked Nvidia’s shares on Monday; they closed 5% lower, while the cost of insuring the chip company’s debt against default using a credit default swap (CDS) rose.
“The market reaction to the Nvidia news was swift. Nvidia fell 5% and closed the session below the $200-per-share mark. More importantly, Nvidia’s five-year CDS spiked, suggesting that it may not yet be the right time to buy the dip,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote.
