AI Investment Boom Boosts Japan and South Korea Stocks: Kospi Rises Over 4%, SK Hynix Rises Nearly 5%, SoftBank, Samsung Rise Nearly 4%

TradingKey - During the Asian trading session on July 23, Japanese and South Korean stock markets continued their rebound momentum, with SK Hynix, Samsung, and SoftBank rising by 3%-5%.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) closed up 4.40% at 7,096.82 points, rising for the third consecutive trading day.

Source: TradingView

As capital continued to flow back into the tech sector, South Korean shares rose more than 4.5% intraday, prompting the Korea Exchange to temporarily trigger the KOSDAQ program buying halt mechanism, suspending related trading for 5 minutes to cope with volatility from the rapid market rise.

Samsung Electronics closed up 3.65% at 270,000 won (approximately $194.8); SK Hynix rose 4.86% to close at 1,919,000 won.

In the Japanese market, the Nikkei 225 Index rose 0.46% to close at 66,422.60 points.

SoftBank Group rose 3.77% to close at 5,918 yen (approximately $36.3); Kioxia opened higher but reversed course, rising over 3% in early trading before erasing all gains to close down 3.72% at 61,880 yen.

Asian chip stocks rallied collectively, primarily boosted by Google's parent company Alphabet ( GOOGL) further increasing its AI investments. The company recently stated that its capital expenditure in 2026 will reach up to $200 billion to continue expanding its AI computing power infrastructure, once again igniting optimistic market expectations for the expansion of demand across the AI industry chain.

As a key supplier to Google, SK Hynix rose up to 6.5% intraday, with the market expecting its high bandwidth memory (HBM) demand to continue to benefit.

Following this round of gains, the market remains focused on whether US tech giants' subsequent earnings reports and capital expenditure plans can be realized, and whether the AI infrastructure investment boom can continue to transmit to the semiconductor supply chain, providing new upward momentum for Asian tech stocks.