AI rattles US investors, while China’s tech stocks hold steady – for now
Investor jitters grow in the US as AI reshapes expectations, but China’s markets have so far reacted with caution rather than panic
Artificial intelligence is already reshaping industries and markets, even though artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a still theoretical form of AI capable of humanlike reasoning across many tasks rather than single specialised functions – has yet to be achieved.
That was the message of a recent essay posted on X by start-up founder Matt Shumer, titled “Something Big Is Happening”. He likened the current moment to the period just before the Covid-19 pandemic, arguing that the disruption driven by AI could prove “much, much bigger”.
The warning has resonated across US tech and investment circles, capping several uneasy weeks in which traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS) stocks came under pressure amid concerns that their business models could be undermined in an AI-driven economy.
China, however, has so far appeared relatively insulated from this latest bout of AI-fuelled anxiety.
Even as Chinese AI models continue to narrow the gap with their US counterparts, particularly following a string of major releases over the past week, legacy software stocks in China have largely held steady.
Some AI-adjacent firms have even attracted fresh investor interest. Cultural and content-creation companies, for example, saw share prices rise after ByteDance unveiled its powerful Seedance 2.0 video-generation model, as the industry expects the tool to improve productivity and streamline workflows.