Shares in companies heavily exposed to AI data centres, including crucial chipmakers and semiconductor manufacturers, fell sharply on Thursday, highlighting investor concerns that had already been growing.
In European trading on Thursday, shares in chipmaker Infineon fell by more than 8.5% while tech equipment manufacturer ASML dropped by 6.5%.
Nvidia shares slid more than 9%, knocking more than $400bn off the firm’s market value in New York trading.
Other chipmakers also suffered, with AMD and Micron both dropping by more than 17%. Intel shares also dropped, down 10.3%, while memory card maker SanDisk plunged more than 22%.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which tracks the performance of 30 of the largest companies involved in semiconductor production, fell by more than 12%.
Shares in Elon Musk’s companies SpaceX and Tesla also plunged, falling 8% and nearly 11% respectively and shaving more than $300bn off the firms’ market value on Thursday.
Musk had spent nearly $450m backing Republican campaigns, including at least $45m in support of Ken Paxton for the Texas senate seat, but Texas was turned blue in the Democratic tsunami on Tuesday night.
In total, the so-called magnificent seven tech companies, including Apple, Nvidia and Tesla, have shed a trillion dollars in value in a single trading day.
The stock falls also hit other major US stock indexes. The S&P 500 index fell by 4.4% by the end of trading, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average erased gains made on Wednesday to close down more than 3.4%.
The Nasdaq Composite fall was so large it is now in what market watchers call correction territory, which is where an index or company value falls at least 10% below its recent high.
