Asian markets suffered a catastrophic session this Tuesday, with the South Korean KOSPI collapsing by 10.8% to 6,023.66 points, its worst session in months, triggering nine automatic trading halts. Samsung Electronics lost 13.4% and SK Hynix fell 14.7%, while in Japan, Kioxia plummeted 18% and the Nikkei retreated by 4%. The trigger appears to be the revelation that a Chinese state-backed company began mass production of DUV immersion lithography machines, threatening the Dutch firm ASML’s monopoly and challenging South Korean dominance in artificial intelligence semiconductors. On Wall Street, Nvidia had already lost nearly 5% the previous day, as doubts about its « circular » financing model and the $250 billion guarantee granted to OpenAI for an Ohio data center fueled panic. This rout illustrates a major redistribution of cards in the global semiconductor race, with CXMT seeing its Shanghai IPO surge by over 400% for a market cap of approximately $485 billion.
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