Global artificial intelligence-related stocks fell on Monday after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged a slower pace in the development of AI capabilities. The proposal was publicly backed by other major tech figures, adding to investor concerns about the next phase of the AI trade.
Investors worry that if the industry shifts to a more restrained development path, the impact could spread across the supply chain — from chip purchases to demand for computing power. That backdrop triggered a broad sell-off in AI-linked names.
In Asia, South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics closed down more than 6% and 4%, respectively. In Japan, SoftBank, one of the largest investors in OpenAI, fell 10%.
In Europe, semiconductor and other AI-related stocks also dropped sharply in early trading. ASML fell more than 5%, Nokia was down around 8%, and Infineon lost more than 7%. Siemens Energy and Schneider Electric, which are tied to the buildout of data center infrastructure, also traded lower.
U.S. premarket trading showed the same negative tone. Micron was down about 5%, Intel fell nearly 6%, and Nvidia slipped almost 3%. Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet also edged lower.
The sell-off came as debate intensified over the risks posed by rapidly improving AI models. Last week, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who previously worked at OpenAI, said he had resigned because, in his words, Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives."
That prompted Anthropic safety researcher Evan Hubinger to say he believes there is a greater than 10% chance AI will "kill all humans" within the next decade. Those remarks sparked a firestorm on social media and pushed industry leaders to respond publicly.
On Saturday, Dario Amodei published an essay arguing that "We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models." His position drew unusual agreement from rivals. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he agreed with Amodei that AI companies need to "pace the frontier."
Markets weigh the economic implications
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has warned about AI risks for years, wrote on X: "Dario is right." For markets, however, the core question is how any slowdown could affect the hundreds of billions of dollars in capital expenditure being directed toward chips and computing infrastructure.
Zoe Gillespie, a senior director at RBC Brewin Dolphin, told CNBC that the equity market rally has been heavily tied to expectations of AI-driven growth and productivity gains. If that narrative starts to weaken, she said, it could affect market performance going forward.
Amodei did not call for a full stop. He said that even under a slower approach, "progress will still seem fast." Altman added in an X post on Monday that "pacing" does "not mean 'stopping'." He said progress has been rapid and will remain so, but safety cases and monitoring come with significant costs.
Ben Barringer, global head of technology research at Quilter Cheviot, told CNBC that while training and rollout may slow somewhat, the overall pace of change will still be vast. In his view, supply remains tight in inference, meaning demand still exceeds available capacity, so company revenues may not take a major hit even if development slows slightly.
Inference refers to the actual running of AI systems, as opposed to training, where huge amounts of data are used to improve underlying models. That distinction matters for investors because demand for computing power remains strongest in that part of the market.
