Asian markets fell on 14 September 2026 after leading artificial intelligence figures, including Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, called for a slowdown in AI development on safety grounds. Investors are reassessing valuations of AI-linked firms, worried that a slower rollout would make it harder for companies to fund their massive spending on data-centre infrastructure, potentially raising credit risk for highly leveraged operators and lenders.

South Korea's KOSPI index dropped 3.7%, with chipmaker SK Hynix down 5.75%, while SoftBank shares fell as much as 13% in Tokyo after OpenAI's Sam Altman said the company would not float this year; Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company slipped 1.2%. Amodei warned that building AI "too fast is reckless" and that swarms of AI agents could eventually cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, a view echoed by Altman and Elon Musk though disputed by some experts; analysts noted the unusual dynamic that the caution is coming from AI developers themselves rather than from investors or a lack of Big Tech funding.