The Nasdaq Composite plummeted following calls to slow the development of AI. Which stocks came out on top?
Photo: X / NYSE
U.S. stocks fell at the opening bell on September 14 amid warnings from the heads of AI giants about the risks of developing this technology too quickly, CNBC reports. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite plunged 1.2% right off the bat, the broad-market S&P 500 lost 0.7%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%.
The stock market is also under pressure from a spike in oil prices, which rose after Saudi Arabia shut down a key pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz. Futures for the U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 3.9% to exceed $104 per barrel. Contracts for benchmark Brent crude gained 4%, rising to $109.
Among the hardest-hit companies were chipmakers, which benefit from rising spending on training and the deployment of new models. Nvidia’s stock price fell 3.7% at the opening bell, Intel’s shares dropped 7.8%, and Marvell Technology’s stock plunged 9% right off the bat. Broadcom lost 3.7% of its value, and Advanced Micro Devices fell 5.8%. Shares of memory manufacturers Micron and SanDisk fell by about 7%.
The sell-off also affected other companies involved in AI infrastructure. Shares of CoreWeave, which leases computing power based on AI chips, fell 6%. Super Micro Computer, which manufactures servers for data centers, lost 6.8%.
Of the four largest hyperscalers, however, only Amazon's stock fell. Shares of Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft were trading higher after the market opened.
Cybersecurity stocks also rose: in addition to concerns about the risks of artificial intelligence, they were buoyed by the hack of the fintech platform Revolut, MarketWatch notes. Palo Alto Networks shares gained more than 5%, while CrowdStrike shares rose 7.3%.
Software developers such as Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, and Adobe also posted gains. As new models have rapidly evolved, investors have increasingly voiced concerns that software companies’ customers might replace their products with cheaper alternatives created using AI, The Wall Street Journal notes.
What Analysts Are Saying
Investors acknowledge that the call by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei—backed by Sam Altman and Elon Musk— to slow down AI development could lead to delays in the procurement of chips and other equipment, MarketWatch notes.
"This discussion is about security procedures, not about reducing computing power for training models or the volume of such purchases. However, in the short term, the market is still reassessing the risks associated with lending to AI companies, demand for GPUs and HBM memory, and IPO prospects, as if the slowdown could push back capital expenditure schedules,” said Goldman Sachs analyst Sean Johnston.
Although leaders in the U.S. AI industry have no intention of putting AI development on hold, their comments suggest that safety concerns can and should slow the pace of advanced AI development, according to Justin Post and Nitin Bansal of Bank of America, as reported by Bloomberg. “We believe that concerns about the deployment of AI could negatively impact sentiment toward the value chain in this sector. Despite these potential concerns, we remain confident that demand for AI computing power will remain high for many years to come,” the BofA analysts wrote.
Calls to slow the expansion of AI infrastructure—and the resulting fears for the tech sector—are “exaggerated,” according to Max Kettner of HSBC. He says that, in the end, this could even help boost the profitability of AI companies.
This news story is being updated.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
