Asian AI stocks plunge amid calls to slow development

Shares of artificial intelligence-related companies plunged on Asian stock markets on Monday after prominent industry executives said the rapid pace of AI development should be slowed.

Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei urged AI companies to reduce the speed at which they expand their models’ capabilities, citing growing concerns about the misuse of the technology. SpaceXAI head Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said they shared Amodei’s concerns.

Altman later confirmed that OpenAI would not list on a stock exchange this year, citing safety concerns.

In Tokyo, shares of SoftBank, one of OpenAI’s major investors, fell by as much as 13.2%. Shares of memory-chip maker Kioxia dropped about 10%, while Tokyo Electron declined 3.7%.

Takayuki Miyajima, an analyst at Sony Financial Group, said selling pressure on AI and semiconductor stocks in Tokyo could intensify after weekend comments calling for a slower pace of AI development.

AI companies listed in mainland China and Hong Kong also declined. Shares of chatbot developer Z.ai fell more than 10% after a discounted share sale.

Last week, Anthropic published a report saying its Claude models had been used for various activities, including weapons development and cyberattacks. One of the company’s researchers, Jacob Kokson, resigned on Sept. 8 and warned that artificial intelligence “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Altman described the risk of human extinction caused by AI as “unacceptable.”

The European Union has used the situation to promote an international regulatory initiative. Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president of the European Commission, said global rules were “truly necessary.” She said EU legislation requires companies to assess the risks of losing control, but no such requirement exists globally.

Germany’s minister for digital affairs, Karsten Wildberger, proposed creating a global oversight body for AI safety modeled on the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog. The United States and China are expected to hold talks on AI safety this month.

US President Donald Trump called AI critics “very negative forces” and said the United States must remain a leader in the field.