An aerial view of Singapore's skyline.
Tong Thi Viet Phuong | Moment | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets opened mostly lower Friday, tracking Wall Street declines, as fears over artificial intelligence disruption drove the S&P 500 to a third straight day of losses.
Certain pockets of the U.S. stock market have been hit this year by the release of AI tools that threaten automating tasks performed by some companies — or at least risk eating into their profit margins.
Shares of several trucking and logistics firms declined on fears that new AI tools could slash major freight inefficiencies, leading to less demand for the industry's services.
Real estate and financial stocks were also casualties, with commercial real estate brokers extending losses for a second straight day.
Investors in Asia were watching for any spillover effects. Taiwan — among the most prominent market in the AI space — was closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was 1.02% down in early trade.
Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 0.58%, after briefly touching 58,000 on Thursday. The Topix declined 0.58%. South Korea's Kospi added 0.35%, while the small-cap Kosdaq retreated 1.36%.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell over 1%, while the mainland CSI 300 lost 0.39%.
Hong Kong-listed Zhipu AI, that trades as Knowledge Atlas Technology, extended its rally on Friday, up 16%, after Thursday's near-30% surge, building on investor enthusiasm around its newly launched open-source GLM-5 model.
MiniMax also added over 11%, extending gains from its last session, as momentum around its updated M2.5 model and enhanced AI agent tools continued to drive buying interest.
Beijing Haizhi Technology Group shares soared over 260% after a $97 million IPO.
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