Semiconductor stocks lost ground on Monday.
The investor response to the calls by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and rival executives to slow down frontier artificial-intelligence development was greeted negatively, albeit not catastrophically, by investors on Monday.
Anthropic rival OpenAI, in addition to backing the call for a pause, pushed its initial public offering into next year.
Major semiconductor stocks including Marvell Technology (MRVL), Intel (INTC) and Micron Technology (MU) lost between 5% and 8%.
Nvidia (NVDA), the AI chip giant, saw its shares slip 3%.
Server maker Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) fell 6%.
The 4.7% fall in the iShares Semiconductor exchange-traded fund SOXX is on track to be the worst since a 5% decline on Aug. 18.
"The debate is safety process, not an announced cut to training compute or offtake; however initially the market is still marking AI credit, GPU/HBM demand and IPO optionality as if pacing could slip capex calendars," said Sean Johnstone, who is on Goldman's TMT sales desk.
JPMorgan international trading desk's Federico Manicardi and Victoria Campos made a similar point. "This is not a halt: the benefits for growth, healthcare and democracy still outweigh the tail risks; AI adoption and token trends remain intact; excessive slowing risks ceding leadership in AI; and the administration remains pro-AI," they said in a note to investors.
SoftBank (JP:9984), an investor in OpenAI as well as semiconductor designed ARM, tumbled 11% in Tokyo, its worst one-day decline since June 26.
One segment trading higher in premarket trade was the cybersecurity sector, though in addition to the AI safety fears British fintech Revolut also confirmed a customer data breach.
CrowdStrike's (CRWD) stock advanced 4.5% as shares in Palo Alto Networks (PANW) rose 3.5%.
-Steve Goldstein
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