AI-linked stocks across Asia sold off sharply today. SoftBank, Kioxia, SK hynix, Samsung and TSMC all came under pressure as investors reacted to a growing debate around whether the industry should slow the pace of frontier AI development. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for more time to evaluate safety risks before pushing model capabilities much further, while other major AI leaders have also shown support for stronger safeguards. The market’s first reaction is understandable: if even the AI labs themselves are saying “slow down,” does that mean the massive spending on GPUs, HBM, networking and data centers is also about to cool? Tiger thinks the answer may be more complicated. What may slow is the pace of frontier model training, not necessarily the overall demand for AI compute.
Memory Stocks Hit Hardest — Can Price-Driven Growth Last?
Memory was the worst group Monday: SK Hynix −7.60% to $175.63, Micron −5.25% to $924.03, SanDisk −4.98% to $1,551.99. They fell harder than semis because the valuations assume price increases keep coming. SanDisk's August 5 quarter showed the structure: revenue $8.97bn, +51% sequentially, with the company putting a third of that on volume and two-thirds on price, and non-GAAP gross margin up 6.2pp to 84.6%. TrendForce had NAND contract prices up 70–75% in the spring quarter, narrowing to 10–15% the next. Micron reports Sept 30. When two-thirds of growth is price, does the headline number hold?
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