Asian technology stocks fell sharply Friday after a steep sell-off on Wall Street overnight. CNBC reported that the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sank 5.5% and entered correction territory, closing more than 10% below its recent peak. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 12.2%.
In South Korea, SK Hynix dropped over 8% and Samsung Electronics shed 7%. LG Innotek and LG Display fell 10% and 7.7%.
In Japan, Advantest plunged 12.2%, Tokyo Electron slid 7.3% and SoftBank Group tumbled 11.6%. Kioxia Holdings fell nearly 10% and Renesas Electronics declined 7.5%.
In Taiwan, TSMC slid 9.6%. Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn, fell 9.4%, and Foxconn Technology fell 9.1%.
In China, the STAR Market and the ChiNext Artificial Intelligence Index each fell more than 4%.
The report says investors worried about renewed doubts over AI spending and the returns on large data-center investments. It also says investors feared that Democrats' sweeping victory in the U.S. midterm elections could lead to tighter restrictions on data-center development, which could slow demand for AI chips and related infrastructure.
Timothy Moe, chief Asia Pacific equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" that position unwinding, stop-loss selling and heightened volatility exacerbated the Asian sell-off. He said potential political opposition to U.S. data center construction may affect demand and profits for Asian AI hardware suppliers. "If there's concern about the speed and magnitude of buildout in the U.S., then obviously that's going to put all that into question," Moe said. "The market's tendency is always to shoot first and ask questions later. I think that's exactly what's happening now."