Several technology and AI stocks are plummeting on stock exchanges across Asia amid concerns about another increase in US interest rates.
Examples include memory chip giants SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, down 10.6 percent and 8.8 percent, respectively. The Kospi is down 7.2 percent, and trading was halted for 20 minutes.
The declines follow news of rising US inflation and falling AI stocks in the US on Wednesday. On Nasdaq, one of the decliners was cloud services company CoreWeave, which fell more than 15 percent - a drop believed to have contributed to turmoil in Asian stock markets.
CoreWeave's funding problems and rising inflation in the United States are fueling concerns about higher borrowing costs and the sustainability of AI investments, Hebe Chen, an analyst at stockbroker Vantage Global Prime, told Bloomberg.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange is also being dragged down by concerns about AI stocks. The Nikkei 225 is down 4.8 percent and the Topix is down 2.4 percent. Investment company SoftBank - which has several technology companies in its portfolio - is down 9.1 percent.
In China, stock markets are also falling, but more moderately. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange is down 2.8 percent and Shanghai is down 2.0 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index is down 1.5 percent.
