{"id":5181,"date":"2026-04-30T11:22:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T11:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=5181"},"modified":"2026-04-30T11:22:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T11:22:33","slug":"investors-shrug-off-iran-worries-to-return-to-asia-backbone-of-the-whole-ai-value-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=5181","title":{"rendered":"Investors shrug off Iran worries to return to Asia, ‘backbone of the whole AI value chain’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Asia\u2019s stock markets have rebounded since the outbreak of the Iran war over two months ago, as the AI boom lifts the fortunes of manufacturing economies like China, South Korea, and Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsia was outperforming global markets before the Iran conflict started,\u201d Charu Chanana, Saxo Bank\u2019s Singapore-based chief investment strategist, tells Fortune. While there was an initial pullback following the war\u2019s outbreak, \u201cthings have started to recover in the last two weeks and Asia is outperforming again\u201d.<\/p>\n

One reason is growing demand for AI and its related infrastructure. Asia houses three-quarters of the world\u2019s semiconductor manufacturing, so a global surge in demand for AI processors and memory chips is lifting the fortunes of chip and chip-related companies. JPMorgan analysts, in a 2025 market review, noted that tech-related growth is now spreading globally following a decade of U.S. overperformance.<\/p>\n

South Korean firms like SK Hynix and Samsung are cashing in on the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, while TSMC dominates in logic chip manufacturing. East Asia holds nearly all of the world\u2019s production capacity for chips smaller than 10nm, which are essential to cutting-edge AI technology and other electronics.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsia is the backbone of the whole AI value chain,\u201d Chanana explains. \u201cNvidia needs components from Asia to make its chips, and even if the U.S. wanted to set up something to replace inputs from TSMC, it would still take years.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, the Middle East conflict is stoking fears of de-dollarization, sending investors in search of alternatives like the Chinese yuan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole conflict\u2014even if it ends tomorrow\u2014does add a lot of budget pressure to the U.S.,\u201d Chanana notes. \u201cThey have to spend to rebuild their defense, and that adds to de-dollarization fears.\u201d (The American Enterprise Institute estimates that the Iran war has already cost the U.S. between $25 and $35 billion, while the Pentagon told Congress that the first six days of the war alone cost them $11.3 billion.)<\/p>\n

Asia\u2019s great market divide<\/p>\n

Other Asian markets aren\u2019t faring as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Buoyed by the AI trade, East Asian economies have largely erased their losses incurred when the war began. As of April 27, Taiwan\u2019s Taiex is up almost 10% compared to pre-war levels, while South Korea\u2019s KOSPI has risen by 4%. Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 and China\u2019s CSI 300 have also inched upwards.<\/p>\n

But Asia\u2019s emerging economies, largely in South and Southeast Asia, are grappling with fuel shortages caused by the closed Strait of Hormuz. Wealthier Asian economies have both built up large fuel stockpiles (like China has), and have enough money to pay higher prices (like South Korea has). Developing Asia has been left stranded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEnergy is still a dependency in Southeast Asia,\u201d Aditya Laroia, CEO of Maybank Securities, says. \u201cIf you\u2019re not producing it all domestically, then you\u2019re naturally dependent on a lot of other parts of the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He adds that weak governance and corruption allegations are also dampening investor confidence in parts of Southeast Asia. The Philippines, for example, saw a huge market sell-off in late 2025 following a major corruption scandal with government-funded flood-control projects. <\/p>\n

\u201cWherever there\u2019s instability in terms of government and policy, it\u2019s detracted from capital flows,\u201d Laroia says.<\/p>\n

This has been reflected in weakening market indices in Asia\u2019s emerging economies. Since the war began, India\u2019s NIFTY 50 has fallen about 5%, while the MSCI ASEAN index is down by 7%.<\/p>\n

Southeast Asia\u2019s infrastructure opportunity<\/p>\n

AI and the Iran war do converge on one area, however: energy security. Data centers require immense amounts of electricity to run, boosting demand even as fuel supplies from the Middle East remain locked in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is where Southeast Asian nations like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, are getting the chance to shine. They, alongside other ASEAN nations, are stepping up efforts to build out critical energy and AI systems within the region. \u201cThere\u2019s a big infrastructure play in Southeast Asia,\u201d Laroia says. \u201cThe investment of capital into energy sources and renewables will continue, and that\u2019s why this part of the world still has a lot of growth left in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On April 23, the British Investment Institute, the U.K.\u2019s development finance institution, announced a $1.48 billion Asian climate investment initiative to finance green energy projects across India and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really infrastructure that creates the biggest opportunity right now, from an investment perspective,\u201d Chanana, of Saxo Bank, says.<\/p>\n

#Investors #shrug #Iran #worries #return #Asia #backbone #chain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asia\u2019s stock markets have rebounded since the outbreak of the Iran war over two months…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[2334,10542,1740,22,92,376,166,780,10541,1246],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}