Asia stocks tumble as investors question AI spending boom

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 4.5% to 69,127.10 and South Korea’s Kospi plunged 6.8% to 8,323.52 in early trading on Friday, June 26, as investors pulled money out of Asia’s hottest AI-linked stocks. The selloff hit Tokyo and Seoul hardest after a run-up that had made chip-heavy markets some of the biggest beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence trade this year.

Kioxia, the Japanese chipmaker, fell 12% after OpenAI considered delaying its initial public offering, a move that fed a broader retreat from stocks tied to AI. Traders were locking in gains from recent rallies, but they were also rethinking whether valuations had moved ahead of the underlying earnings and spending plans that are supposed to justify them.

The turn came only a day after Asian tech shares surged on Thursday, when strong earnings and forecasts from Micron Technology and Qualcomm helped calm some of the doubts that had been weighing on the sector. That rally quickly gave way to another wave of selling as investors decided that a few upbeat chipmaker results did not erase the larger question hanging over the market: whether the boom in AI spending is still building a foundation for future profits, or simply inflating prices faster than companies can deliver returns.

South Korea’s Kospi had been one of the world’s strongest major indices in 2026 before the late-June pullback, a sign of how much momentum had built around the AI theme. When investors turn cautious, the same markets that benefited most from enthusiasm about semiconductors, data centers and AI infrastructure can move down fastest.