The warnings from Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI founder Elon Musk unsettled investors who have poured billions of dollars into companies expected to benefit from the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence.
Amodei urged AI developers to moderate the speed at which their models become more capable, citing growing concerns about the misuse of increasingly powerful systems. Musk and Altman subsequently expressed agreement with the call for greater caution.
The comments came as the AI industry faces mounting scrutiny over the potential use of advanced models in cyberattacks, fraud, surveillance and weapons development.
Altman later said OpenAI would not proceed with an initial public offering this year, citing safety concerns, adding another layer of uncertainty around one of the world's most closely watched AI companies.
SoftBank, Chipmakers Lead Market Declines
The market reaction was immediate across Asia.
Shares of SoftBank Group, a major investor in OpenAI, fell as much as 13.2% at the start of trading in Japan. Memory chipmaker Kioxia dropped 9.8%, while Tokyo Electron, a key supplier to the semiconductor industry, declined 3.7%.
In Taiwan, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company fell 1.2%.
South Korean chipmakers were hit harder, with SK Hynix dropping 5.3% and Samsung Electronics losing 3.7%.
"Selling pressure is likely to hit AI and semiconductor-related stocks in Tokyo following a series of weekend comments calling for a slowdown in the pace of AI development," Takayuki Miyajima, senior economist at Sony Financial Group, said in a note.
"Additionally, uncertainty surrounding the situation in the Middle East continues to weigh on sentiment."
The declines extended into mainland China and Hong Kong. Memory-chip maker CXMT fell 2.7% in Shanghai, while Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation declined 1.4%.
In Hong Kong, Zhongji Innolight dropped 4.1% and Minimax fell 5.4%. Shares of Z.ai, the developer of the GLM series of AI models, plunged as much as 10.5% after the company completed a discounted share placement.
Misuse Concerns Intensify
The latest market turmoil follows a series of developments that have intensified debate over the risks associated with rapidly advancing AI technology.
Anthropic, the San Francisco-based AI company behind the Claude model family, released a threat intelligence report on Thursday detailing cases in which several actors allegedly used its AI models for activities including weapons development, cyber operations, surveillance and fraud.
The report added to concerns that increasingly sophisticated AI systems are becoming capable of carrying out or assisting with harmful activities at a scale that could be difficult for governments and technology companies to control.
Those concerns were reinforced by the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who warned about the potentially catastrophic consequences of AI development.
Coxon said that the "people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade."
Altman has similarly acknowledged the potential dangers posed by increasingly capable AI systems. In an interview, he described the risks of human extinction associated with artificial intelligence as "unacceptable".
The comments underscore a growing tension within the technology industry: the same rapid advances that have created enormous commercial opportunities are also generating concerns about security, misinformation, cybercrime and other forms of misuse.
Political Debate Adds to Uncertainty
The debate has also moved increasingly into the political arena.
Several U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns about the speed of AI development and called for stronger regulation and safeguards. The issue has become particularly contentious as technology companies race to build increasingly powerful models and expand the infrastructure required to operate them.
U.S. President Donald Trump, however, struck a more supportive tone on Sunday, describing AI critics as "very negative forces" who were raising scenarios that would not happen.
Trump said he wanted to ensure that the United States remained the global leader in artificial intelligence, highlighting the strategic importance Washington places on maintaining its technological advantage over other countries.
The competing views reflect a broader global debate over whether governments should prioritize AI development and technological leadership or impose stronger restrictions to manage potential risks.
AI Trade Faces a New Test
AI-related stocks have been among the biggest drivers of global equity-market gains since OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022.
Investors have increasingly bet on the companies supplying the computing power, memory, networking equipment and semiconductor manufacturing capacity needed to build and operate increasingly sophisticated AI systems.
That trade has helped propel valuations across the technology sector, benefiting chipmakers and equipment manufacturers in particular.
But the sector is now confronting a growing list of challenges. Cyberattacks involving rogue AI agents, concerns about the social impact of automation and opposition to the construction of energy-intensive data centres have all contributed to a more critical public debate over the industry's expansion.
The latest warnings from AI executives introduce another potential risk: whether the development of increasingly powerful models will have to slow because of safety concerns.
Meanwhile, the United States and China are expected to hold discussions on AI safety as part of broader bilateral talks scheduled for this month, according to two people briefed on the plans.
For investors, the question is increasingly whether the AI boom can continue at its current pace while governments, companies and researchers grapple with the risks accompanying the technology's rapid evolution. Monday's selloff suggested that even relatively modest warnings from industry leaders can now have significant consequences for markets heavily invested in the AI growth story.