Asian tech stocks tumbled Friday as a rout in U.S. semiconductor shares spread across Asia, underscoring worries about AI spending. SoftBank dropped 9.2%, while chip equipment makers Tokyo Electron lost 9% and Advantest slid 9.4%, tracking steep overnight Wall Street losses.

Japanese memory chipmaker Kioxia plunged over 14% after a Texas federal jury ordered it to pay $229 million in damages for infringing a Viasat patent. South Korea's markets were closed, but SK Hynix fell over 11% Thursday. TSMC fell 3.64% despite posting a sharp profit jump and raising full-year capex to $60-64 billion from $52-56 billion.

Chinese tech stocks weakened, with Tencent, Meituan, Kuaishou, Baidu, and Alibaba all lower. The declines followed a weak U.S. session where the Nasdaq fell 1.47% and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF dropped nearly 4%. Arm Holdings, Micron, AMD, and Broadcom each lost over 5%.

Investors focused on concerns that aggressive investment cycles are hard to justify. Andrew Jackson of Ortus Advisors said the sell-off reflects unwinding of crowded AI momentum trades rather than deteriorating fundamentals, as investors question whether lofty valuations can be sustained amid accelerating AI infrastructure spending.