Asian chipmakers drag Nikkei 2.33% lower as US payrolls loom

Asian equities sold off sharply as investors rotated out of semiconductor and AI-hardware names ahead of the U.S. June non-farm payrolls report. Japan 225 fell 2.33% to 68,831, while South Korea’s KOSPI dropped as much as 5% and China’s Shanghai Composite lost 2.03%. The article links the move to concerns that Meta Platforms is building a cloud business to resell excess AI computing capacity, which raised doubts about the durability of memory-chip demand. That sparked heavy losses in SK Hynix and Samsung and weakened the broader tech-heavy Asia complex. Markets are also bracing for the payrolls data, with U.S. yields rising this week and keeping the dollar supported. The piece frames the decline as a sector-specific repricing rather than a systemic risk-off event, since European equities were firmer and U.S. futures were only slightly lower.