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The Nikkei 225 Index continued its freefall as technology companies like Softbank, Tokyo Electron, Kioxia, and Advantest plunged ahead of the upcoming big-tech earnings. It plunged by over 4%, reaching its lowest level since June 11.

SoftBank extended Asia's technology rout on Friday, sliding 9.7% by Tokyo's midday break as investors continued pulling money from the region's most crowded artificial-intelligence trades. The fall followed a brutal Thursday in Seoul, where SK Hynix tumbled 13%, Samsung Electronics lost 8.8% and the Kospi sank 6.4%.

Japanese AI-linked stocks tumbled on Friday as a fresh rout in U.S. semiconductor shares spread across Asia. The declines followed another weak session for U.S. technology stocks.

The development of AI will require investment of $5 trillion each year by 2040, and any talk ‌of a bubble forming around the technology is "absurd", SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son said on Tuesday.

OpenAI originally planned to go public in late 2026, but it now looks like that won't happen until 2027. A $40 billion loan that SoftBank took out to support its OpenAI investment comes due in March 2027.