Global stocks fall as investors worry about AI spending

Global equity markets declined on Friday after a broad sell-off in technology stocks, driven by investor concerns over the scale of spending on artificial intelligence. The Nasdaq Composite slipped more than 2 percent, while the S&P 500 lost about 1 percent in early trading. Major U.S. tech companies Alphabet and Meta each fell roughly 3 percent, and SpaceX, the aerospace and AI firm founded by Elon Musk, dropped over 5 percent after briefly trading below its $135 debut price.

In China, AI firm Moonshot announced the release of a new model, Kimi K3, which it said matches the performance of offerings from U.S. companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI and could become the world’s largest open-source model. The news prompted declines in the shares of competing Chinese AI companies.

Analysts noted that investors are questioning whether the large, often leveraged, outlays for AI infrastructure—including data centers and chip-manufacturing facilities—will generate the anticipated returns.