Global stock markets rise as investors continue to bet on AI

Tesla, which surged 4.04 percent, led the rise among five of the "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks as global markets climbed.

In the United States, all three primary stock indexes saw increases on Tuesday. The Nasdaq Composite, heavily weighted with technology firms, advanced by 1.18 percent. The S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose slightly by 0.03 percent.

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable public company, gained nearly 1 percent after disclosing a $3bn investment in Meta’s equity offering. Conversely, Meta dropped 1.64 percent, and Microsoft saw a slight decrease of 0.24 percent. Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom, and Intel also posted notable gains of 5.45 percent, 4 percent, and 3.61 percent, respectively.

These positive trends carried into the Asia Pacific on Wednesday, with markets in Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and South Korea all climbing. The KOSPI in Seoul led the upward momentum, climbing 5.84 percent by 03:00 GMT. This surge followed news that SK Hynix, a major memory chip producer, announced strong third-quarter figures.

SK Hynix reported an operating profit that soared approximately 630 percent year-on-year, reaching 83.33 trillion won ($62.8bn), causing its shares in South Korea to jump over 8 percent. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 rose 1.26 percent, and Taipei’s TAIEX was up 1.32 percent, while Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 edged up 0.11 percent.

Investors are keenly awaiting upcoming earnings reports from major tech players to assess if their substantial investments in AI are yielding returns. Microsoft and Alphabet are due to report on Wednesday, Amazon on Thursday, and Apple on Monday.

Meanwhile, AI giant Anthropic filed paperwork for its highly anticipated IPO on Monday, revealing a net loss of $80.7bn in the first half of 2026 against $16.3bn in revenue. With tech firms injecting hundreds of billions into AI infrastructure, questions persist about a potential speculative bubble similar to that before the 2000 dot-com crash.

Gartner, a technology insights company, projects that global AI investment will reach $2.7 trillion in 2026 and climb to $3.6 trillion in 2027. Amid the ongoing Middle East conflict, oil prices rose about 1 percent as Asian markets opened, with Brent crude futures standing near $115 a barrel, a 59 percent increase from pre-war levels.