Asia-Pacific markets were set to open higher Thursday, tracking Wall Street gains as investors shrugged off concerns of an artificial intelligence bubble.
Nvidia shares advanced Wednesday stateside after CEO Jensen Huang said that demand for AI computing is “substantially” up in the last six months. Stocks of CoreWeave also jumped after the AI cloud provider unveiled new tools to help programmers develop AI agents.
The Bank of England on Wednesday warned of a “sharp market correction” if the AI bubble bursts — the latest in a long list of banks and investors to weigh in on whether an AI bubble is forming as markets tick into the fourth quarter.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index was set for a higher open, with its futures contract in Chicago trading at 48,250, and its counterpart in Osaka at 48,160, against the index’s Wednesday close of 47,734.99.
Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 rose 0.33%.
Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index pointed to a higher open, trading at 26,863, against the index’s previous close of 26,829.46.
South Korean markets are closed for a holiday.
U.S. equity futures were little changed in early Asian hours after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite scored new records Wednesday stateside as investors shrugged off the government shutdown in its second week.
Overnight, the broad index S&P 500 climbed 0.58% to close at 6,753.72, notching its eighth winning day of the last nine. Gains on the index were led by the information technology, utilities and industrials sectors, which notched fresh closing highs.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.12% to finish at 23,043.38. That’s the first time the technology-heavy index has closed above the 23,000 mark.
However, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.20 points to end the day at 46,601.78.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring, Sean Conlon and Sarah Min contributed to this report.
