This AI essay has wiped billions off tech stocks
Key Points
- Chip stocks fell 3% to 7% on Monday after Dario Amodei's essay calling for slower AI development
- OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk both backed the proposal
- Quilter Cheviot said Anthropic's IPO plans may explain the timing
- The firm said demand for AI computing still far outstrips supply
- Semiconductor stocks had already lost $1 trillion in value earlier in 2026
Chipmakers including Nvidia, Intel, AMD and SK Hynix fell between 3% and 7% on Monday (14 September) after Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei published a 3,800-word essay calling for the AI industry to slow down.
Wealth manager Quilter Cheviot said the sell-off reflected investor fears that the huge build-out of AI infrastructure over recent years could be about to slow.
“There has been a lot of noise around artificial intelligence in the past week, with high profile resignations and posts from both Anthropic and OpenAI culminating in Dario Amodei penning this substantial essay,” said Ben Barringer, Head of Technology Research at Quilter Cheviot.
Amodei published the essay, titled “We Must Pace the Frontier”, on Saturday (12 September). He argued that AI capabilities are advancing faster than the safeguards designed to control them, and that companies should deliberately slow the pace at which they improve their models.
OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman backed the proposal within hours, posting on X that he agreed with Amodei. Elon Musk also endorsed the call.
The essay followed a week of public rows at the two companies. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned saying the labs were “gambling with our lives”, while safety researcher Evan Hubinger said he believed there was a greater than 10% chance AI could kill all humans within the next decade.
Markets reacted as soon as they opened on Monday. SK Hynix closed down more than 6% in South Korea, Samsung Electronics fell 4%, and SoftBank, one of OpenAI’s largest backers, dropped 10% in Japan.
Chip equipment maker ASML fell more than 5% in Europe, Nokia lost around 8% and Infineon dropped more than 7%. The Nasdaq fell 1.9% and the S&P 500 declined 0.8% in the US.
Barringer said the timing of the essay raised questions about Amodei’s motives. “There are a lot of reasons why Amodei might be writing something like this at this juncture and it probably does throw up more questions than answers, which the market will not like,” he said.
The firm pointed to Anthropic’s plans to list on the stock market as one factor. “The company is also in IPO mode so Amodei will want to show the company is a good steward of investors’ capital, while there may also be an element of looking to push a fresh regulatory agenda and push for more controls that may ultimately be beneficial for Anthropic,” Barringer said.
He added that Amodei may also see a chance to lead the debate on responsible AI at a time when the technology has a poor reputation in the US.
Barringer said the market had overreacted to the prospect of a slowdown. “Amodei is talking about slowing the pace of training from very fast to just fast, so benefits are still going to come quickly,” he said.
The firm said the shortage in the industry sits in inference, the computing power used to run AI models once they are built, rather than in training new ones. “Demand still far outstrips supply, so even if things are to slow a little, company revenues are unlikely to be impacted,” Barringer said.
He said similar calls had come before with little long-term effect, although none from a source as prominent as Amodei. “With lots of moving parts at play here, especially Anthropic-specific ones, the wider market will need to get more clarity on the path for AI spending before it can make progress, especially at a time of rising interest rates,” Barringer said.
Semiconductor stocks had already lost more than $1 trillion in market value earlier in 2026 as investors questioned whether the spending on AI data centres could continue at its current pace.
