AI stocks slide after major CEOs unite to urge slowdown

Global AI-related stocks fell on Monday after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a slowdown of the development of AI capabilities, with other major tech figures backing the proposal.

In Asia, South Korean heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics closed down more than 6% and 4%, respectively. Shares of SoftBank, one of the biggest investors in OpenAI, fell 10% in Japan.

In Europe, semiconductor and other AI-related stocks also fell sharply in early trading. Chip equipment giant ASML fell more than 4%, Nokia was down around 5%, and Infineon dropped more than 6%. Other companies with business ties to the buildout of data centers, such as Siemens Energy and Schneider Electric, were also lower.

Major stocks also fell in U.S. premarket trading. Memory chipmaker Micron was down around 5%, Intel dropped nearly 6%, while Nvidia was more than 2% lower. Several other semiconductor names also fell. Hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet were all slightly lower.

Shares of Nvidia, ASML and SoftBank year-to-date.

The sell-off comes amid the growing debate over the risks posed by rapidly improving AI model capabilities that hit a crescendo last week after Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic who also previously worked at OpenAI, said he resigned out of concern that Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives."