The shockwave of AI chips: the Meta–Google effect shakes Asian markets

The potential alliance between Meta and Google on TPUs reshapes investor expectations: boom for Alphabet’s partners, slowdown for Nvidia-linked stocks. Asia watches and recalibrates its bets on artificial intelligence.

Asian technology stocks went through a turbulent session on Tuesday, following reports that Meta is in talks to adopt Google’s AI chips instead of Nvidia’s GPUs. The news alone was enough to call into question the entire balance of the AI ecosystem and to push investors to reposition themselves in the face of an increasingly competitive technological landscape.

The clear winners were the Asian companies tied to Alphabet’s supply chain, buoyed by the optimism generated by the launch of the latest Gemini model. Conversely, stocks more dependent on the “Nvidia effect” slumped sharply: SoftBank, a key partner of OpenAI, fell as much as 11% in Tokyo, while memory giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix pared gains in Seoul, held back by rising uncertainty over future GPU demand.

According to Hiroaki Tomori of Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management, the central question is how to reassess the valuation of chip-related stocks: “If Google offers its TPU to Meta, Nvidia’s dominance is no longer guaranteed.” A view shared by Gary Tan of Allspring, who sees the Kospi’s pullback as a sign of investors weighing the impact of Gemini on the TPU vs. GPU dynamics, especially looking ahead to 2026. Costs are also a key concern. “Inference doesn’t require chips as powerful as those used for training,” notes Xin-Yao Ng of Aberdeen Investments, highlighting how TPUs and ASICs are gaining ground.

This transition could accelerate if, as Han Sangkyoon of Quad Investment Management warns, language models become increasingly interchangeable: “If they become commodities, the winner is whoever produces at the lowest cost.” For Homin Lee of Lombard Odier, the current volatility is only the beginning of a longer adjustment phase: the AI-chip narrative is changing, and investors will have to adapt to a new balance among competing giants.

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s jolts reveal an increasingly clear truth: in AI, nothing is more stable than a temporary advantage. In this context, international cooperation plays a fundamental role: in the Italian landscape, for example, one can look to the Italy–Japan strategic cooperation agreement - signed at the end of 2023 - focused on new technologies, AI semiconductors, quantum mechanics, and biotechnology. During the agreement, the importance of strategic partnerships in facing future challenges, especially in the field of Artificial Intelligence, was strongly emphasized.

Andrea Pelucchi