Asian tech stocks surged after the Iran-US deal, and AI chipmakers gained the most

Asian technology stocks surged on Monday after the United States and Iran announced a peace agreement, with AI and semiconductor companies posting the largest gains. SoftBank rose 10 per cent, SK Hynix climbed 6.42 per cent, and Samsung Electronics gained 4.5 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 topped 69,000 for the first time in history.

The rally was broad but concentrated in companies tied to AI infrastructure. Tokyo Electron, which manufactures chip fabrication equipment, jumped 7 per cent. Advantest, the world’s largest maker of semiconductor testing equipment, rose 7.67 per cent. Both companies derive significant revenue from the AI data centre buildout that has driven chip demand over the past two years.

In South Korea, the response was even more dramatic. The Kospi index surged 5.2 per cent to 8,545.98, triggering circuit breakers that briefly halted trading. SK Hynix, which crossed $1 trillion in market capitalisation just three weeks ago, added another $64 billion in a single session.

Samsung Electronics, which hit its own $1 trillion milestone on May 6, extended its gains further. Both companies manufacture the high-bandwidth memory chips that Nvidia uses in its AI accelerators. Their stocks had been weighed down by geopolitical risk premiums that evaporated overnight.

Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s most advanced chip manufacturer, rose 2.81 per cent. Foxconn, which assembles servers for Nvidia and Apple devices, gained 2.69 per cent. The more modest gains reflect Taiwan’s smaller direct exposure to Middle Eastern oil disruption risk compared with Japan and South Korea, both of which are almost entirely dependent on energy imports.

The deal that triggered the rally came together over the weekend. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts.” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “the deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete.” A formal signing ceremony is scheduled for June 19 in Switzerland.

The language from both sides describes a permanent resolution, but the underlying agreement is more limited. The framework is a 60-day interim arrangement focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply passes. The strait’s closure during the conflict had pushed Brent crude above $90 per barrel and created shipping insurance costs that rippled through Asian supply chains.

Markets are pricing in permanence. The speed and scale of the rally suggest investors believe the deal will hold beyond its initial 60-day window. If it does not, the same stocks that surged on Monday would face a sharp reversal.

The biggest winner was SoftBank, which has transformed itself from a telecom conglomerate into an AI investment vehicle. The company overtook Toyota as Japan’s most valuable listed firm in early June, driven by its stakes in Arm Holdings, its planned $100 billion Stargate AI data centre joint venture with OpenAI, and a $7.5 billion investment in Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 servers. A 10 per cent single-day gain on a geopolitical catalyst, rather than an earnings report or product announcement, underscores how tightly AI companies are now linked to macroeconomic risk.

The pattern across all three markets was the same: companies at the centre of the AI supply chain gained the most. Memory chipmakers, equipment manufacturers, and AI infrastructure investors outperformed broader indices by wide margins. The Iran conflict had created a risk premium specifically on companies with complex Asian supply chains and high energy exposure.

That risk premium is now gone, at least for 60 days. The question is whether a two-month framework to reopen a shipping lane justifies the hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalisation that appeared on Monday. The Nikkei’s close at 69,317.45, up 4.99 per cent, represents a bet that the geopolitical backdrop for Asian tech has fundamentally shifted.

For AI chipmakers specifically, the rally compounds gains that were already historic. Samsung and SK Hynix both crossed $1 trillion for the first time in May, driven by insatiable demand for high-bandwidth memory from data centre operators. The Iran deal removed the last major overhang on their stocks. If the 60-day agreement collapses, those trillion-dollar valuations will face their first real stress test.