Surging interest in Meta’s new AI tool fuelled further gains in global tech shares on Tuesday, pushing Taiwan’s stock market to a record high and buoying other Asian markets. Taiwan’s Taiex rose as much as 1.9 per cent in early trading before closing up 0.2 per cent. The index is up more than 60 per cent this year, vying with South Korea’s Kospi as one of the biggest gainers on the back of the AI boom.

The Taiex rose despite a 0.8 per cent fall for its largest constituent, the chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The Kospi gained 0.5 per cent on Tuesday, with chipmaker SK Hynix down 1.5 per cent while rival Samsung Electronics gained 0.7 per cent. Japan’s markets were closed for a public holiday.

The moves in Asia came after the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.3 per cent in the US on Monday to a record closing high, while the S&P 500 rose 1.5 per cent for its biggest one-day gain since early August. Meta closed 11.4 per cent higher on Monday after its Muse AI personal assistant became the most downloaded free app on Apple’s App Store. It has gained about 35 per cent over the past month.

Chip stocks linked to the AI trade also rose on Monday. Intel added 12.1 per cent while AMD rose 9.9 per cent to surpass $1tn in market value. The Philadelphia Semiconductor index, which tracks the major US chip companies, rose 4.3 per cent as the tech sector broadly benefited from lower inflation expectations.