World shares log modest losses as investors assess impact on AI sector from the Nvidia scandal

Detailed summary

Shares were mostly lower Friday in Europe and Asia, but losses remained modest as investors assessed how Jensen Huang’s resignation as Nvidia CEO might affect the global artificial intelligence industry.

HONG KONG — Shares were mostly lower Friday in Europe and Asia, but losses remained modest as investors assessed how Jensen Huang’s resignation as Nvidia CEO might affect the global artificial intelligence industry.

A global outage for Microsoft web services disrupted email accounts and some other applications worldwide but appeared to have scant direct impact on markets.

Microsoft said in an update Friday that the outage was affecting a wide range of Microsoft 365 offerings that interact with its Exchange Online and email services. Services including Outlook, Teams and AI assistant Copilot were reported by users to be down.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX edged 0.1 per cent lower, to 26,748.60 and the CAC 40 in Paris also shed 0.1 per cent, to 8,353.98. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.1 per cent to 10,856.66.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.5 per cent to 61,142.35. Shares of chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron were up 1.7 per cent, while memory chip maker Kioxia Holdings dropped 2.3 per cent. OpenAI investor SoftBank Group lost 5.1 per cent.

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index declined 1 per cent to 5,290.53. Samsung Electronics, one of South Korea’s most valuable companies, was down 1 per cent. Memory chipmaker SK Hynix fell 3 per cent.

Taiwan’s Taiex gained 1.4 per cent, with its leading chipmaker TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., adding 0.4 per cent.

The departure of Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and has been a key architect of its role at the center of the AI boom, has raised questions about the company’s future. Its shares fell 4 per cent after his resignation was announced. Huang had been the face of Nvidia and was deemed by some in the industry as bigger than Nvidia itself.

Huang stepped down after his affair with a Chinese tech executive raised U.S. national security concerns. Nvidia’s longtime chief financial officer, Colette Kress, will be its interim CEO.

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