The AI boom has hit its peak: What is happening with investments in artificial intelligence

On September 14, technology markets from Asia to New York moved in sync to the downside. The trigger was a statement by Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei: he publicly called on the AI industry to slow down the pace of technology development, citing security risks. This is far from the first such warning from people within the industry — but it was precisely this one that sparked the sell-off.

The South Korean technology index KOSPI on September 14 closed down 3.3%, while the US Nasdaq lost 0.8%. However, the market reaction was uneven: chip manufacturers fell the hardest, while shares of software companies, on the contrary, rose noticeably. This division is the key storyline of the event: the market did not simply fear the “end of AI,” but began to reassess who exactly benefits from the boom and who depends on its endless acceleration.

Why chips are falling, but not software

In recent years, investors expected companies like Nvidia to continuously increase spending on AI infrastructure development. This requires ever more chips, servers, and data centers.

Therefore, Amodei’s words about a possible slowdown in the AI race were perceived by the market as a signal: companies might start spending less on infrastructure. If demand for new capacity slows down, this will directly hit chip manufacturers and data center equipment providers.

The situation is different for software companies. If businesses develop AI more gradually, they will be able to earn money using already built infrastructure and ready-made models. They do not need to constantly increase spending on new equipment.

Harris Financial Group analyst Jamie Cox believes that the market is going through a normal stage of the technology cycle: first, companies actively build infrastructure in anticipation of high demand, and then supply may begin to grow faster than actual need.

In his opinion, the AI infrastructure market may be approaching the upper part of the growth curve — a period when the pace of further expansion begins to slow down.

Not everyone agrees that this is a reversal

Not all analysts perceived the sell-off as a signal of real slowdown. Steve Sosnick from Interactive Brokers pointed out a contradiction: if the market truly believed in a halt to AI spending, not only chips but also the quotes of Big Tech itself — Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft, which are continuing to grow — would have fallen more sharply. According to his observation, the sell-off looks more like a revaluation of certain dependent sectors rather than a rejection of the AI theme as a whole.

Peter Andersen from Andersen Capital Management went further and called the market reaction panicked and unfounded — in his opinion, the industry simply has no reason to brake sharply, and the sell-off creates more of an opportunity to buy than signaling a trend reversal.