Asian AI Stocks Slump on Pacing Calls, SoftBank Falls 13% and SK Hynix Drops 5.3%

Asian tech stocks sold off Monday after Anthropic's Dario Amodei called on the industry to pace frontier development and OpenAI's Sam Altman backed the appeal. SoftBank plunged 13% in Tokyo, South Korea's SK Hynix dropped 5.3% and Samsung Electronics fell 2.8%, dragging the KOSPI down 2.5% and the Nikkei 225 down 0.8%. OpenAI's earlier decision to postpone a 2026 IPO on safety grounds compounded the selling.