Rocky week for AI as shares slump but no sign of crash – yet
TL;DR
AI stocks had a rough week: Alphabet dropped after DeepMind departures, while Samsung and SK Hynix fell by double digits on worries about $500bn spending plans and softer demand for HBM memory. The selloff looks dramatic, but it has not erased the boom. The Guardian says the Kospi is still up 125% this year, Samsung 183%, SK Hynix 310%, and Google 20%.
Nauti's Take
The important point is not whether AI is dead. The important point is how fragile the story becomes once investors stop treating every data-center dollar as automatic growth.
A pullback after 183% or 310% year-to-date gains is not a crash. But it shows that AI is now less a tech trend than a macroeconomic lever.
Anyone watching only model demos is missing the real question: who earns enough to keep paying for this infrastructure?
Briefingshow
This is not yet the AI bubble popping; it is a stress test for the valuation logic behind it. When a handful of chip and platform stocks pull entire indices, AI capex, memory prices, and retirement portfolios become part of the same bet. The market is testing whether real demand can carry the infrastructure hype.
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