[Edaily Reporter KIM YOON JI ] As the global decline in semiconductor stocks intensified, the KOSPI index—which has a high concentration of semiconductor stocks—plummeted by more than 7% during the trading session. Analysts attribute this to concerns over overheating in artificial intelligence (AI) investments and intensifying competition with Chinese semiconductor companies, which have weighed on investor sentiment.
According to Bloomberg on the 13th, shares of SamsungElectronics(005930)and SK hynix(000660) fell by approximately 7% and 10%, respectively, dragging down the KOSPI index. The KOSPI closed down 5.5% that day. In the wake of the sharp decline in U.S. semiconductor stocks overnight, Taiwan’s Taiex and Japan’s Nikkei 225 also fell by nearly 2% each.
Anxiety over AI-related investments grew further after Broadcom CEO Hock Tan likened market sentiment to a casino and warned that securing funding for AI infrastructure would be a key challenge. Speaking at an event in Singapore the previous day, CEO Tan noted, “Many investors have no idea what they’re investing in,” adding, “They’ve set extremely high expectations and may come to realize that they’re acting as if they were in a casino.”
Speaking at the event, he said, “We’ve experienced bottlenecks several times over the past two years, but we’ve overcome them each time. The current memory shortage may also be a different story a year from now,” adding, “In my view, capital could be the biggest constraint.”

Bloomberg noted that these remarks further weakened the case for investing in AI-related stocks, as concerns over investments leveraging massive debt spread due to rising interest rates, even threatening the initial public offering (IPO) market.
Ha Seok-geun, Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at Eugene Asset Management, said, “Uncertainty over whether the semiconductor boom cycle can continue beyond 2028 appears to be weighing on the valuations and stock prices of Korean semiconductor companies.”
The South Korean stock market was particularly hard hit. The KOSPI index has now fallen by about one-third from the all-time high it reached in June of this year. The exodus of foreign investors is also accelerating. Foreign investors net sold $3.4 billion worth of KOSPI stocks on that day—the largest amount since last June.
News that Chinese competitor Changxin Memory Technology (CXMT) has made progress on a new memory architecture—which SamsungElectronics and SK hynix are also developing—continued to drag down semiconductor stocks, following the previous day’s trend. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that CXMT plans to launch a new server memory product capable of increasing storage density by the end of 2026.
Jeong In-yoon, CEO of Fibonacci Asset Management Global, explained, “SamsungElectronics’ solid earnings were overshadowed by concerns about future competition with CXMT and the sustainability of AI spending,” adding, “While these concerns may weigh on investor sentiment, CXMT still faces the challenge of translating its technological progress into commercially viable, large-scale production.”
Earnings reports from Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML and Taiwanese foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) company TSMC, both scheduled for release this week, are expected to help investors gauge how long the semiconductor industry’s strong profit growth can last. TSMC, Asia’s largest company by market capitalization, saw its stock price fall 2% today.
Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade, said, “Investors no longer blindly trust positive news or high valuations,” adding, “They are scrutinizing the numbers and companies’ underlying business fundamentals much more closely, and AI-related investments as a whole remain subject to rigorous scrutiny.”