By ASML stock fell more than 3% in Amsterdam on Tuesday as semiconductor shares came under pressure amid growing concerns about competition from Chinese chipmakers and the sustainability of financing for the artificial intelligence boom.
The decline extended a broader selloff across global technology stocks, with European semiconductor companies also recording sharp losses in early trading.
STMicroelectronics and Germany’s Infineon fell more than 4% each, while Dutch chip equipment makers BE Semiconductor Industries and ASM International dropped more than 2.5% and 3.7%.
The weakness followed losses in US chip stocks on Monday and a sharp selloff in South Korean semiconductor shares on Tuesday, as investors were taken over by concerns about the cost of financing AI infrastructure after executives at Intel and Broadcom warned that access to capital could become a significant constraint on the industry’s expansion.
They also assessed the competitive implications of progress by Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT).
CXMT advances in next-generation memory technology
CXMT announced “key progress” in developing a new memory-cell architecture designed to increase storage density, putting it on a technological path also being pursued by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
CXMT President Cao Kanyu said at an industrial event in Shanghai over the weekend that the company planned to introduce a new server-memory product based on the technology by the end of 2026, according to a company statement.
The development centres on the “4F square” design, which reduces the area occupied by each memory cell to four square F, with F representing the minimum line width of a semiconductor.
The architecture could allow manufacturers to fit more memory cells onto a single chip, increasing storage density and potentially improving manufacturing efficiency.
Mainstream commercial dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) currently uses a 6F square-cell structure.
Moving to a 4F square architecture could therefore enable manufacturers to store more data within the same area.
SK Hynix unveiled its 4F square development plan in 2025, while South Korean media outlet The Elec reported in April that Samsung planned to begin mass-producing sub-10-nanometre DRAM based on the design by 2028.
The latest developments contributed to a sharp selloff in memory chip stocks.
Micron fell about 4% in US trading on Monday.
Samsung shares dropped more than 7% in South Korea on Tuesday, while SK Hynix plunged more than 10% after declining 4% in the US session a day earlier.
Phillip Wool, chief market strategist at Rayliant Global Advisors, said CXMT’s breakthrough marked a significant milestone for Chinese chipmakers, demonstrating their ability to overcome technology restrictions and potentially challenge established players sooner than expected.
However, he cautioned that the market reaction appeared disproportionate to the immediate competitive threat, given that CXMT had yet to demonstrate large-scale production and continued to lag Samsung and SK Hynix in market share.
“More importantly, we’re not even talking about HBM here, and the Korean chipmakers are still unquestionably dominating that space, with very little threat at all from the likes of CXMT or anyone else for the foreseeable future,” Wool said.
High-bandwidth memory (HBM) is particularly important for advanced AI accelerators, which require fast access to large volumes of data.
CXMT’s ambitions in this market are also drawing attention. The Information reported last month that the company had begun producing advanced HBM in small quantities.
CXMT plans to expand that production in 2027, while Alibaba’s T-Head semiconductor unit and Chinese AI chip designer Cambricon are already testing its HBM products with their processors.
Further, a Counterpoint Research report published last month showed that CXMT captured 10% of the global DRAM market in the second quarter of 2026, up from 4% in the same period a year earlier and 8% in the first quarter.
The rapid increase suggests that the Chinese manufacturer is gaining ground faster than many analysts had anticipated.
AI financing concerns add to semiconductor selloff
Alongside the competitive threat, warnings from senior semiconductor executives about financing have added to investor concerns over the AI boom.
Broadcom chief executive Hock Tan said access to capital could become one of the biggest constraints on the industry’s growth, even as demand for computing infrastructure continues to exceed supply.
″[What] I think might be the biggest constraint is capital,” Tan said at the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference in Singapore on Monday.
Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan echoed those concerns, pointing to the rising cost of capital and questions over whether companies investing heavily in AI will eventually generate sufficient returns.
“If there’s any challenge in the front, it’s capital and the cost of capital, and then the other part is in the longer run, people want to see the ROI,” he said.
The comments have heightened concerns that higher bond yields could make it more expensive to finance data centre construction and semiconductor purchases.
Such projects require substantial upfront investment, while the returns may take years to materialize.
If financing costs rise or revenue falls short of expectations, the economics of some AI infrastructure projects could deteriorate.
The concerns come as investors increasingly scrutinize the scale of spending on data centres, advanced chips and related infrastructure, despite continued demand for computing capacity.
The comments weighed on US chip stocks on Monday, which were also trading lower due to high oil prices.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 2.7%, with Nvidia falling 1.3%, Intel and AMD falling 3%, and Broadcom falling 2%.
IMF warns of global consequences from AI correction
Broader financial market concerns have also intensified.
On Monday, the research arm of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, downgraded its outlook on US stocks to neutral, citing “potential volatility around the AI buildout”, while turning bullish on short-term Treasuries.
The International Monetary Fund also warned on Tuesday that a correction in AI-related markets could have far-reaching consequences.
“The consequences of an AI correction could be global,” the IMF warned in its latest financial stability report.
The fund acknowledged AI’s contribution to economic growth but pointed to growing evidence that the gains from investments in AI capabilities may not be as large as expected.
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