In early trading on the 9th, Korea's big semiconductor stocks Samsung Electronics and SK hynix jumped about 5%. The move is seen as stemming from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's dismissal of the AI bubble argument as concerns mounted over expanding investment in artificial intelligence (AI).
As of 9:18 a.m. that day, Samsung Electronics was trading at 167,600 won, up 9,000 won (5.67%) from the previous session. In premarket trading that day, it rose to 170,000 won, hitting a 1-year high. At the same time, SK hynix was up 5.36% at 884,000 won.
On the 6th (local time), Huang said in an interview with U.S. business network CNBC that the scale of AI investment by Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft (MS) is "appropriate and sustainable."
Huang said, "Demand for AI is off the charts, and there is a fundamental reason for it," adding, "We are at a once-in-a-generation period of infrastructure build-out. It is the largest infrastructure build-out in human history."
Huang also pushed back on frequent comparisons between today's AI bubble debate and the early 2000s "dot-com bubble." Unlike then, when many companies only took in investment without engaging in actual business activity, he said the company's graphics processing units (GPUs) are being used 100% for real workloads today, and demand is so strong that even 6-year-old GPUs have risen in price. Following his comments, investor sentiment improved, sending Nvidia up more than 7% and lifting U.S. semiconductor stocks broadly.