SEOUL—Na Se-bin has lost all sense of the value of money.
Since January, he has poured almost all of his life savings, about $47,000, into the stock market, attracted by the global AI boom that is enriching tech powerhouses in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
Facing wild market fluctuations, the 24-year-old South Korean software developer said he has won and lost the equivalent of a month’s salary in the span of a second. Despite the risk, she can’t resist – not after watching the price of some of her holdings double. Over the past 18 months, South Korea has been the world’s top-performing stock market, and Na and his colleagues joke that they should sell their underwear to buy more shares.
“Even friends who have never touched stocks are getting involved,” Na said. “Everyone is doing something.”
Trillions of dollars are flowing into global manufacturing of AI, which is dependent on semiconductor and chip-making technology from a handful of Asian exporters. The surge in chip demand around the world is leading to a steady rise in exports, corporate profits and the bank accounts of many investors.
Despite recent volatility, the value of Taiwan’s main stock market has doubled over the past year. South Korea’s number has tripled. Japan’s Nikkei has risen more than 80% over the same period – triple the return of the S&P 500.
Growing demand for AI-related goods has inspired investors – in Taipei, taxi drivers trade stocks mid-trip – and boosted salaries. A surefire pickup line explaining that you work at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker and a generous local employer. Employees at the memory-chip division of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics are expected to receive an average bonus of $400,000 this year. The company is projected to deliver bigger profits in 2026 than any global firm except Nvidia.
This part of the tech world wants to prosper whether OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic and SpaceX can deliver on the promise of monetizing AI services. Asia’s titans supply the indispensable hardware, the metaphorical picks and shovels of the AI gold rush.
Silicon Valley’s four hyperscalers—Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Alphabet’s Google—together plan to spend up to $670 billion on AI-related capital expenditures this year. That level of spending exceeds the inflation-adjusted outlay for American rail expansion of the 1850s, as well as the decades-long construction of America’s Interstate Highway System begun a century later.
Global exports of AI-enabled goods reached nearly $4 trillion last year, with Asia accounting for two-thirds, according to an Allianz Trade report. Those goods included semiconductors, data-storage servers and cooling systems.
According to market researcher Gartner, direct spending on AI – covering services, infrastructure and software – is projected to total $2.6 trillion this year, a 47% increase from 2025. It is expected to reach around $3.5 trillion next year.
Jensen Huang, chief executive of major US chip-designer Nvidia, recently concluded a high-profile, 18-day trip filled with events, speaking engagements and business meetings in Taiwan and South Korea.
In Taipei, where convenience stores sell lottery tickets that can win 500 shares of Nvidia stock, Huang announced plans to spend $150 billion a year in Taiwan, which he called the epicenter of the AI revolution. In South Korea, Huang signed agreements with local companies in robotics, memory chips and AI.
While Huang was in Seoul, South Korea’s main stock index halted trading on June 8 after falling more than 8%. The fall followed a US selloff in chip stocks including Nvidia. Wearing his usual leather jacket, Huang avoided the fall even in the scorching heat of Seoul.
“Everyone should be very happy about stock prices,” he said, “because you can buy stocks more cheaply.”
Na, who just started stock trading this year, estimates that more than 80% of the people in his social circle are actively investing, as well as all of his coworkers. A co-worker, spooked by stock returns, spent thousands of dollars on a wedding ring, he said.
Na has spent on concert tickets, fancy clothes and dinners for her parents. She had planned to buy a gold ring for her mother to celebrate her parents’ 30th wedding anniversary, but her mother refused.
“He told me to just give him the cash,” Na said of buying the stock.
best seller
Ye Lun-hao, a 37-year-old insurance agent, invests more than half of his monthly salary of about $2,100 in local AI- and chip-related companies. The value of his property has quadrupled, and he recently bought a four-bedroom apartment in Taichung, Taiwan for about $440,000.
For years, his friends stayed away from market investing. Now, they ask him for advice on where to invest their money.
“If there were no semiconductors, none of this would happen,” Yeh said. “Investing allowed me to step away from pure survival mode and enjoy the beauty of this world.”
TSMC became a major reason for the boom in Taiwan’s market. The company accounted for more than 90% of the state-of-the-art chipmaking’s revenue last year, according to tech-market researcher Counterpoint Research. TSMC is the seventh most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than $2.2 trillion – bigger than Tesla or Meta.
The company’s shares have more than doubled in the past year, helping Taiwan’s combined stock index outperform comparable markets in France, the UK and India.
The chip maker has more than 41% of Taiwan’s main market share. By comparison, the Magnificent Seven—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla—together make up about a third of the S&P 500.
The starting salary for an engineer at TSMC can be three times the salary for comparable jobs elsewhere. Some executives the company selected from smaller companies were lured by raises of up to 30%, said Chok Chiang, co-founder of Wafer, a Taipei-based recruitment platform.
Wang Tsien-lung, the owner of a high-end liquor store in Zhubei, Taiwan, had filled several orders from TSMC. He said he once sold Napa Valley whiskey to company founder Morris Chang. Now, their store is too small to meet the company’s demand. “We look at them with hearts full of awe and respect,” he said.
Kevin Wang Wei-Wen earned an engineering degree in Taiwan and part of his classwork included visiting one of TSMC’s factories, where salaries start at about $62,000 a year. This kind of salary is unheard of, he said. “Every household is talking about TSMC.”
He now attends graduate school at the University of Michigan, and TSMC recruiters are calling. Wang is wary of the company’s tough hours, yet he also sees perks beyond the strong pay. Being a TSMC engineer confers a social prestige that attracts Taiwanese parents who closely scrutinize their daughters’ pursuits.
“Your opening line could literally be that you work at TSMC,” Wang said.
TSMC-branded products sell at a premium in a rich secondary market. Rice cookers bearing the company’s corporate colors and circuit-board logo cost about $312 on e-commerce sites, four times more than the price paid by TSMC employees.
Buyers buy TSMC accessories, glasses and shoes. Even the red holiday envelopes given to TSMC personnel are sold online – with their contents removed – for about $15.
all ages welcome
The South Korean market is led by the twin chip giants, Samsung and SK Hynix, which dominate the production of the two major types of memory chips for AI computation and data storage.
The two companies, which recently reached trillion-dollar valuations, account for more than half of South Korea’s Kospi composite index. The Kospi was the world’s top performing index last year, and it continues to lead the global rankings this year.
Choi Sung-ho, a 35-year-old elementary teacher, is one beneficiary. His Korean stock portfolio has grown nearly fivefold in the past year to more than $300,000. This includes bets on leveraged exchange-traded funds that track semiconductor stocks. They’ve upgraded their mobile devices and are looking to spend six figures on their next car, either a Mercedes-Benz S-Class or a Tesla Model
“Even the kids at my school have mentioned that their parents are happy with their stock returns,” Choi said.
More than 180,000 trading accounts for children aged 18 and under were created at South Korean brokerage Toss Securities in the first three months of the year. Parental approval is required to open accounts and children are allowed to trade on their own. A recent promotion offered $14 deposits to new accounts opened by high-school students.
On YouTube, the “ETF-Explaining Bro” channel is one of an emerging group of “Finfluencers” offering market advice. The channel has gained more than 127,000 followers since its launch last July, said Park Soo-in, owner of the channel. “Many people expect the rally to continue,” he said.
Stock gains are boosting an already strong luxury-goods market. Cartier’s store inside a major department store in Seoul was so crowded with shoppers that some items from its “D’Amour” jewelry collection can now only be purchased online.
Lim Chae-hoon, sales chief of a BMW dealership in Seoul, said his customers often mention their stock windfall. “There are definitely more people with more money now,” he said.
In Japan, Toyota Motor saw its 22-year run as the country’s most valuable company end this month, dethroned by SoftBank Group, which bet big on OpenAI and data centers.
SoftBank’s reign did not last long. Last Friday, Kioxia, a little-known memory-chip maker, took the No. 1 spot. A year ago, a share of Kioxia sold for about $14. Now, it sells for around $600. Kioxia’s success sparked a search by investors for the next big company.
Even Japan’s luxury toiletry maker Toto has scored on the AI boom. Its high-tech ceramics are used to keep silicon wafers motionless while they are etched with circuitry. The company’s shares have more than doubled.
Another company, Ajinomoto, uses by-products of its world-famous umami seasoning to make insulating films for AI chips. Its shares are up 50%.
Ryoaki Nao, 21, is an excellent semiconductor engineering student at a university in Kumamoto, Japan: he is surrounded by classmates who invest, but he doesn’t. Nao keeps an eye on the markets but plans to graduate and secure a job before investing.
“I want to wait until I am able to earn a good amount of money,” he said.
Write to Jiyoung Sohn at jiyoung.sohn@wsj.com, Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com, and Junko Fukutome at junko.fukutome@wsj.com.
