Analysis
Asian technology stocks fell sharply on Thursday, led by SK Hynix, which dropped 9.71%, and Samsung Electronics, down 6.13%, as the region's chipmakers tracked an overnight pullback in US AI-linked names, according to CNBC. Japanese memory maker Kioxia fell 8.84%, chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron dropped more than 5%, SoftBank Group fell 4.36%, and Taiwan's TSMC was down 1.46%.
Pulse has previously covered SK Hynix's Nasdaq listing as one of the more closely watched Asian tech IPOs of the year, and its stock has become something of a bellwether for global AI sentiment given how directly its earnings are tied to memory-chip demand from AI data centers. This is the second sharp chip-sector drop tied to SK Hynix in roughly a week -- the stock also fell after a disappointing earnings report on July 29 that dragged down chip names globally.
The pattern across both selloffs is the same: memory and AI-chip stocks in Asia are now trading with tight, near-immediate correlation to overnight US tech moves, a level of coupling that gives South Korean and Japanese chipmakers very little room to trade on their own fundamentals when Wall Street's AI trade wobbles, regardless of whether the underlying demand picture in Asia has actually changed.