Asian shares are mixed as investors assess impact of Nvidia's fallout on global AI development

Hong Kong: Asian shares were mixed Friday as investors assess what Jensen Huang's resignation as Nvidia CEO means for the global artificial intelligence industry.

US futures edged higher despite earlier losses on Wall Street, which saw Nvidia falling more than 4 per cent after Huang's exit from the company.

Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.8 per cent to 61,283.16. Shares of chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron were up 1.5 per cent, while memory maker Kioxia Holdings dropped 2.5 per cent and OpenAI investor SoftBank Group lost 5.2 per cent.

South Korea's benchmark Kospi index declined 0.5 per cent to 5,317.05. Samsung Electronics, one of South Korea's most valuable companies, was down 0.7 per cent. Memory chipmaker SK Hynix fell 2 per cent.

Taiwan's Taiex was up 1.7 per cent, with its leading chipmaker TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., adding 0.9 per cent.

With the resignation of Jensen Huang, who co-founded the company and had been a key architect of Nvidia's AI strategy and the broader global AI boom, new questions are being raised as to how his departure could impact the development of the technology. Huang himself had been acting as the face of Nvidia and was deemed by some in the industry as bigger than Nvidia.

The announcement of his resignation came Thursday after his affair raised US national security concerns, with Nvidia's longtime chief financial officer Colette Kress stepping in as interim CEO.

Many AI hardware stocks across Asia have been highly dependent on the speed of AI infrastructure development in the US

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 0.9 per cent to 23,786.48. The Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.2 per cent to 3,663.71.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slid 0.7 per cent to 9,084.80.

India's Sensex fell 0.2 per cent.

On Thursday, Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 slipped 0.4 per cent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.4 per cent, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite also declined 0.4 per cent.

Shares of some of Nvidia's rivals rose on Thursday. AMD, or Advanced Micro Devices, rose 5.9 per cent.

Stocks were also under broad pressure from an increase in oil prices after US President Donald Trump said Thursday the US didn't "need a deal with Iran" even as the conflict in the Middle East drags on.

"We don't need a deal with Iran," he posted on social media. "Those days have long since passed. We've got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we've got their Strait!"

Early Friday oil prices stabilised, with Brent crude, the international standard, edging down 0.1 per cent to USD 95.70 a barrel. It was roughly at USD 72 per barrel in late February before the Iran war began.

Benchmark US crude was down 0.4 per cent to USD 88.41 a barrel.

The US dollar rose to 159.91 Japanese yen from 159.84 yen. The euro was trading at USD 1.1059, up from USD 1.1055.

(This story has not been edited by Mathrubhumi and is published from a syndicated feed.)