"Jensen Huang Supports AI: After the Crash, Finally Able to Buy at a Discount"

“You should be happy!” As global tech stocks come under a sell-off, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang not only avoids backing away—he instead frames this pullback as a buying opportunity.

On Monday, South Korea’s benchmark index Kospi dropped sharply, and U.S. tech stocks also slipped last Friday amid concerns about rate hikes, with AI trading enthusiasm clearly cooling.

After meeting SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won in Seoul, Jensen Huang told reporters: “We are at the starting point. No matter what happens in the stock market, you should feel very happy, because you can buy now at a discount.” He stressed that, “Everyone should be feeling very excited.”

Facing outside questions about stock-market volatility, Huang sticks to his consistent position. He said that it is “a foregone conclusion” that AI will become a global infrastructure, “just as the internet became a global infrastructure back then.”

He believes the industry is still at an early stage of building the underlying infrastructure for AI. This infrastructure will support future economic models centered on AI, and in turn will drive sustained large-scale demand for data centers and chips.

During his visit to Seoul, NVIDIA and SK hynix announced that they have signed a multi-year cooperation agreement, jointly developing next-generation memory chips for AI applications. After the news was released, SK hynix’s stock decline narrowed noticeably, to a certain extent easing the market’s pessimism on the day.

AI concept stocks lead the decline, Asian chip stocks suffer heavy losses

The trigger for this round of tech stock sell-off is the market’s concerns that AI trading has become overheated, as well as expectations that the Federal Reserve may raise rates. The global tech sector, which had been rising steadily, therefore came under pressure.

Last Friday, the wave of tech stock sell-offs intensified, and the chip-related stocks index plunged 10% in a single day.

The Asian chip sector also took a major hit. Samsung Electronics fell as much as 11%, SK hynix dropped 10%, and TSMC fell 5.7%. In addition, the Korean market triggered circuit breaker mechanisms due to the sharp decline.

The reversal in market sentiment reflects investors’ doubts about whether returns from AI infrastructure investment can continue to be realized as expected.

Bloomberg MLIV strategist Garfield Reynolds said that U.S. CPI data (to be released this Wednesday) is likely to further reinforce market expectations of Fed rate hikes. He said, “Against the backdrop of investors chasing AI momentum trades and overbetting, the stock market is facing dual pressures: higher yields and the fading of risk premiums.”

Goldman Sachs Asia Pacific Chief Equity Strategist Timothy Moe said on Bloomberg TV that this correction “will, in the long run, prove to be a technical pullback, though concerning, and it is still within a longer-term bull-market framework,” and he expects the Korean stock market to rebound after triggering circuit breakers.

In addition, according to media reports, large numbers of companies seeking financing for AI projects have rushed to issue new shares, which has also raised doubts on Wall Street about whether there is sufficient buying demand to absorb them.

Jensen Huang + South Korean President team up to “stabilize the situation,” Korean stocks’ losses narrow at one point, and most U.S. tech stocks rebound in pre-market trading

As market talk turns anxious, Jensen Huang is taking on the role of boosting confidence.

On Monday, NVIDIA and SK hynix officially announced the establishment of a multi-year technology cooperation partnership. The two sides will carry out joint R&D around next-generation AI storage chips and lock in long-term supply assurances. The agreement will exceed two years and can be continuously renewed.

Huang said, “Every year we already purchase chips worth billions of dollars from SK hynix, and this figure will grow significantly this year.”

Huang said that SK hynix is not only NVIDIA’s largest memory partner at present, but also the underlying support for all of NVIDIA’s future core product lines, including new AI supercomputers, revolutionary CPUs, a reimagined AI PC, and physical-robot processors for handling.

He also directly responded to the recent sharp market drop, saying that “everyone has the opportunity to buy stocks at cheaper prices”—a statement was interpreted by the market as an explicit endorsement of South Korean tech stocks, providing direct support for the recovery of SK hynix’s stock price.

On the market front, South Korean authorities simultaneously launched emergency measures. The Korea Exchange held an emergency market assessment meeting, focusing on the sharp drop in U.S. stocks and overnight futures market performance. It announced that it will strengthen emergency response mechanisms across all institutions and increase surveillance of unfair trading and illegal short-selling activities. At the political level, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung personally spoke at a press conference marking his one-year anniversary in office. He said, “I believe the South Korean stock market is still undervalued, and all Koreans benefit from stock market gains.” This is seen as a clear signal from the government to release confidence in stabilizing the market.

On the same day, the South Korean won fell to its lowest level since 2009, and the South Korean government immediately announced a series of response measures. Coordinated statements from government officials, companies, and the market ultimately pushed the Kospi index to rebound sharply from its intraday low. The decline narrowed from more than 8% to about 4%, but it continued to fall in the afternoon, closing down more than 8%. In U.S. pre-market trading, most tech stocks rebounded: NVIDIA rose 2%, Marvell Technology rose more than 7%, and Micron Technology rose about 5%.

Two major events this week: CPI data and SpaceX going public

This week, investors will also face tests from two major pieces of data.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the United States will release the May Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Producer Price Index (PPI), respectively. The market expects both data releases to show that inflation pressure is still persisting.

In addition, on Friday, Elon Musk’s SpaceX will officially file to go public. It is expected to become one of the largest IPOs in Wall Street history, and also an important test for the market’s AI valuation narrative.

KCM Trade Chief Market Analyst Tim Waterer said, “It’s as if traders suddenly woke up this week to a starkly different reality: strong U.S. employment data, worries about rate hikes heating up, and persistent geopolitical risks—replacing the AI euphoria and taking center stage in the market.”