Tech Market Sell-Off Deepens Amid US Inflation Data and AI Sector Concerns

An accelerating sell-off of AI-linked shares has hit global markets, as concerns over rising inflation and future interest rate hikes affected traders already focused on debt levels in the sector. South Korea’s benchmark Kospi 200 index, which is heavily skewed towards the companies that make memory chips, fell more than 8% overnight to a six-month closing low, triggering circuit breakers that brought trading to a halt at various points.

Some of those semiconductor stocks, such as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, declined nearly 11% and 9.5%, respectively. The index closed at a six-month low, down 8.1%. Meanwhile, Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped by 4.9% on Thursday, after an 11% slump in the memory chip maker Kioxia and a 10% drop in SoftBank, a big investor in the ChatGPT owner, OpenAI.

The falls followed a slide on Wall Street during the previous day’s session, where the Nasdaq Composite fell by 1.9% and the S&P 500 dropped 1.1%, its worst performance since July. The sell-off came after US data showed stateside inflation rose to a higher-than-expected 3.7% in September, marking the fastest increase in prices since the consumer price index (CPI) rate hit a three-year peak of 4.2% in May.

The figure has led investors to expect possible interest rate increases by the US Federal Reserve, with some market participants pricing in another increase as soon as the end of the month. “Markets have just had an incredibly tumultuous 24 hours, as a strong US CPI print was then followed up with mounting concerns around the AI trade,” Deutsche Bank analysts led by Jim Reid said.

The figures showed broad price increases. Reid said: “This wasn’t just an energy surge driving prices higher, as there were broad-based moves across the consumer basket.” Fuel costs have been pushed up by geopolitical tensions. The sell-off follows warnings from the International Monetary Fund, which said this week that the risk of an AI share price decline affecting global markets was putting world financial stability at risk.

“The consequences of an AI correction could be global,” the IMF said. Aside from the US, Asian markets would be most exposed, with the UK and eurozone potentially more insulated – although investors with US holdings would be hit. The latest market movements affected China, where the Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 slipped by as much as 2.4%, marking the lowest level since August 2025. In Taiwan, one of the world’s leading chip makers and Asia’s most valuable company, TSMC, fell 2% despite reporting its sixth straight quarter of profits.

European stocks were lower at the start of trading, with the Europe Stoxx 600 down by 0.4%, the UK’s FTSE 100 down 0.06%, France’s CAC 40 down 0.19%, and Spain’s Ibex falling 0.17%. Germany’s DAX fell by 0.53%. In the US, stock futures pointed to losses for tech stocks, with the Nasdaq 100 futures dropping 1%.