AI Rally Pushes Asian Markets Higher as Samsung Surges on HBM4E Breakthrough

AI Stock Rally Lifts Kospi and Topix as Samsung Surges

Global stock markets posted strong gains on Friday as investors focused on accelerating AI demand and resilient tech earnings despite renewed tensions in the Middle East.

Markets across the Asia-Pacific region followed Wall Street higher after another record-breaking U.S. session driven by artificial intelligence optimism and strong corporate results.

Asian Stock Markets Reach Record Highs

Investors in Asia largely looked past geopolitical headlines, instead focusing on technology growth and optimism surrounding a potential ceasefire agreement.

In South Korea, the benchmark Kospi index surged more than 3.55%, hitting a fresh intraday record high before trimming some gains. Meanwhile, the small-cap Kosdaq index diverged from the broader rally, falling 2.53%.

Japan also posted strong gains. The Nikkei 225 jumped 2.49%, while the broader Topix index rose 1.41% to reach another all-time high.

Elsewhere in the region, market performance remained relatively stable:

• Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed 0.70%
• Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 1.62%
• India’s Nifty 50 traded near flat
• China’s CSI 300 finished unchanged

Samsung Accelerates AI Memory Chip Expansion

A major driver behind South Korea’s rally was Samsung Electronics. Shares of the company rose as much as 6.51% intraday before trading 3.67% higher at 310,500 won following a new AI memory chip announcement.

Samsung confirmed it has started global sample shipments of its 12-layer HBM4E (High Bandwidth Memory) chip. The launch comes only months after the company began shipping standard HBM4 products in February, highlighting Samsung’s efforts to strengthen its position in the rapidly growing AI memory market alongside rival SK Hynix.

HBM chips vertically stack Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM) and are critical for advanced AI systems that process massive amounts of data at high speeds.

Key Technical Specs of Samsung’s 12-Layer HBM4E

• Speed: Up to 16 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps)
• Capacity: 48GB, more than 30% higher than the previous generation
• Efficiency: Improved thermal and energy performance
• Future lineup: Planned 8-layer (32GB) and 16-layer (64GB) versions

These memory solutions are expected to support next-generation AI accelerators, including Nvidia’s Rubin architecture and Google’s Ironwood Tensor Processing Unit (TPU).

Wall Street Tech Rally Strengthens Global Sentiment

Asian markets also took support from Thursday’s strong Wall Street session, where U.S. equities closed at fresh record highs amid renewed enthusiasm around artificial intelligence.

Snowflake shares surged 36.5% in their best trading day ever after the cloud software company beat quarterly earnings expectations, issued strong guidance, and announced a $6 billion infrastructure commitment with Amazon Web Services over the next five years.

The results boosted sentiment across the broader tech sector:

• The S&P 500 gained 0.58% to close at a record 7,563.63
• The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.91% to an all-time high of 26,917.47
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.05% to finish at 50,668.97

U.S. stock futures later traded near flat, while Dow futures edged slightly higher.

Geopolitical Risks Fail to Derail Equity Markets

Markets remained resilient despite renewed military developments involving Iran.

State media outlet Fars reported that Iran launched missiles at unspecified targets late Thursday. Earlier, the Pentagon said Tehran had deployed attack drones in the Strait of Hormuz and directed a ballistic missile toward Kuwait.

Under normal circumstances, such developments would trigger broader risk-off sentiment. However, investors appeared more focused on reports that the U.S. and Iran had “mostly agreed” on the terms of a temporary ceasefire aimed at halting the three-month conflict.

As geopolitical concerns eased, investor attention returned to the structural growth story surrounding artificial intelligence, semiconductor demand, and strong corporate earnings.