Global markets were rattled last week by a series of Chinese semiconductor breakthroughs that appeared to challenge Western chipmakers' dominance of the AI industry, triggering sharp swings in tech stocks worldwide. The turmoil began when Chinese memory chipmaker CXMT floated in Shanghai and soared in value, on the same day reports emerged that China had developed its own deep-ultraviolet lithography tools, breaking Dutch firm ASML's long-held monopoly on this crucial chip-manufacturing technique.

South Korea's Kospi index fell 11.5% on Tuesday and a further 6% on Wednesday, hit hard by falls in SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, while the Nasdaq briefly entered correction territory on Thursday and Nvidia lost over 5%, allowing Apple to overtake it as the world's most valuable listed company. Markets rebounded on Friday after strong results from Amazon and Microsoft, with the Kospi jumping nearly 20%, though it still posted its worst month since 2008. Analysts suggested some of the panic was overdone: CXMT makes memory chips that complement rather than compete with Nvidia's GPUs, and persistent global shortages mean rivals like SK Hynix and Micron face limited real threat before 2030, according to Forrester's Alvin Nguyen. The more genuine long-term concern, the article suggests, is China's newfound lithography capability, which could erode ASML's dominant position in the chip supply chain.