Overview
- Shares of SK Hynix and Samsung fell sharply on Tuesday after a broad selloff that knocked SK Hynix’s U.S. ADR below its IPO price and pushed the Kospi much lower.
- Market moves followed a WSJ report that Nvidia could provide roughly $250 billion in financing support for an OpenAI data‑centre project, which raised questions about whether chip leaders would also be lenders to their customers.
- Investors were also unsettled by reports of Chinese progress on deep ultraviolet lithography and a strong market debut for Chinese memory maker CXMT, which signaled rising competition in memory chips.
- The rise of lower‑cost Chinese open‑source AI models has added doubt about how intense future AI workloads will be, which could cut demand for high‑bandwidth memory and advanced AI chips.
- The rout shows U.S. and Asian listings are tightly linked through the AI hardware trade and highlights new risks for investors, including who will finance huge data‑centre builds and how fast manufacturers can scale complex fabs and tools.