Shares of major Asian chipmakers declined sharply today, extending losses seen on Wall Street. SK Hynix, a primary supplier of high-bandwidth memory for AI accelerators, fell more than 10 percent on the Korea Exchange. Samsung Electronics, another leading memory and logic chip manufacturer, dropped approximately 10 percent.
The declines reflect two investor concerns: potential U.S. Federal Reserve rate increases and mounting uncertainty over venture capital commitments to AI startups and data center projects. Rising rates increase the cost of capital for growth-oriented companies and make future earnings streams less valuable. A slowdown in new venture deployments could dampen demand for the advanced memory chips that power AI data centers.
Both SK Hynix and Samsung have positioned themselves as key suppliers to the AI boom, providing HBM and other critical components for data center buildouts. The sharp stock price drops signal investor sensitivity to any perceived weakening in the AI spending cycle or tightening monetary conditions.
