Tech Stocks Tumble on Worries Over A.I. Spending and China’s Chips

A global technology stock sell-off intensified on Tuesday, underpinned by worries over hefty bills for the build-out of artificial intelligence systems and concerns over tougher competition from China.

The Nasdaq Composite index, chock-full of big technology companies, came close on Tuesday to falling into correction, Wall Street’s term of a drop of 10 percent or more from its recent peak, before rebounding and ending the day down just 0.2 percent.

Still, the slide among top chipmakers remained. The American chip company Micron declined more than 8 percent on Tuesday, as did Advanced Micro Devices. Nvidia, the leading chipmaker, nudged lower before turning higher, but it remains more than 15 percent below its peak in May. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket and A.I. company, also rebounded from an early morning slide. The stock remains more than 40 percent below its June peak.

The bumpy sell-off has taken hold over the past month, as fears about the ballooning spending by big technology companies on A.I. infrastructure and the threat of cheaper competitors undermining it have come to the fore. Cheaper A.I. models threaten the dominance of a handful of U.S.-listed companies, while competition from China has loosened South Korea’s grip on the market for memory chips critical to artificial intelligence.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/business/stocks-ai-chips.html