Asian stocks fell sharply on Thursday, led by steep losses in South Korea and Japan, as a sell-off in technology shares intensified following a decline on Wall Street over higher-than-expected US inflation.
US stock futures also moved lower.
South Korea's benchmark Kospi index plunged 8% to 5,527.12. It has fallen more than 16% over the past month and remains well below the record high of 9,000 it crossed in June amid optimism surrounding the global artificial intelligence boom.
Samsung Electronics shares dropped 9.7%, while SK Hynix, a South Korean memory chipmaker, plunged 11.1%.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index tumbled 5% to 64,334.68. SoftBank Group, an investor in OpenAI, fell 9.6%. Shares of chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron declined 7.5%, while memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings lost 11.2%.
Taiwan's Taiex index, another beneficiary of the AI boom, dropped 3.4%. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the island's leading chipmaker, fell 1.8% ahead of its earnings report.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index declined 1.3% to 24,009.28, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 2% to 3,692.65.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.2% to 8,710.20.
The losses followed a decline on Wall Street on Wednesday. The S&P 500 fell 1.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.9% as AI-related shares came under pressure.
Nvidia shares lost 3.2%, Broadcom fell 3.1% and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) declined 5.7%.
The US reported on Wednesday that its consumer price index rose 3.7% year-on-year in September, up from 3.4% in August and above economists' expectations.
Stock markets have also been pressured by rising bond yields and volatility in the bond market. Yields on longer-term US Treasury bonds have climbed amid inflation concerns fuelled by the global energy shock linked to the Iran war and the continued increase in US government debt.
The yield on the 10-year US Treasury eased to 5.10% after briefly rising above 5.32% on Wednesday. Earlier this month, it reached 5.35%, its highest level since 2002.
Oil prices also declined as uncertainty over global supplies and continuing tensions in the Middle East weighed on the market.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 1.5% to $104.47 per barrel. However, the price remains significantly higher than the approximately $72 per barrel recorded before the Iran war began in late February.
US benchmark crude dropped 1% to $94.17 per barrel.