Anthropic's chip plan triggers 4.3% semiconductor selloff

Anthropic's early-stage push to develop proprietary AI chips with Samsung as a potential manufacturing partner sent semiconductor stocks into a broad selloff across US and European markets.

Anthropic's early-stage push to develop proprietary AI chips and its talks with Samsung Electronics as a potential manufacturing partner triggered a broad selloff in semiconductor stocks, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index sliding 4.3% and the Nasdaq 100 turning negative after an initial gain driven by weaker-than-expected US jobs data.

The project remains nascent, with no detailed design or manufacturing work begun, Anthropic told The Information. The company said Amazon's Trainium chips, Google's tensor processing units and Nvidia's graphics processors will remain core to its computing strategy.

Anthropic is considering Samsung's 2-nanometer manufacturing process — which packs more transistors per square millimeter to improve performance per watt — and the Korean conglomerate's advanced packaging facilities, according to The Information. The company recently hired Clive Chan, an early member of OpenAI's custom chip team, as part of a deliberate engineering buildout. The move mirrors a strategy adopted by OpenAI, which tapped Broadcom to design its first custom inference chip, called Jalapeño, unveiled last month.

The selloff hit memory makers hardest. Sandisk tumbled 12%, Western Digital fell 7.5% and Micron Technology dropped 4.3%. AMD slid 3.9%, Intel lost 2.9% and Nvidia declined 1.3%. European chip stocks also fell, with ASML, ASM International and BE Semiconductor Industries each dropping more than 3% and Nokia losing 4.1%.

Why AI Labs Are Building Their Own Silicon

The move by Anthropic follows a playbook adopted by Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, all of which have developed proprietary silicon to reduce dependence on third-party suppliers. Nvidia, despite the competitive noise, has not lost ground — The Information's own estimates put the company's AI chip market share at 74%, higher than before the inference-chip arms race began.

For Samsung's foundry business, winning a marquee AI client like Anthropic would be a significant victory. The Korean company has struggled with leading-edge process yields relative to TSMC's N2 node, a concern analysts have repeatedly raised. Google is separately considering using Samsung for part of a future tensor processing unit, according to The Information, which would represent another win for Samsung's contract manufacturing business if confirmed.

Investment Impact

The selloff reflects a market recalibrating the competitive dynamics of the AI chip supply chain. Nvidia shares fell 1.3% on the news. Broadcom, which generates custom chip design revenue from OpenAI, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing both traded higher in the session, as investors appeared to view the competitive threat as distant.

The broader implication is that as more AI labs bring chip design in-house, the pricing power and volume commitments of incumbent semiconductor manufacturers face a longer-term threat. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron all participated in Anthropic's $65 billion fundraising round in May, giving the AI company deep ties to the memory chip industry it may now be seeking to disrupt. For investors, the key question is whether Nvidia's 74% market share can withstand a wave of custom silicon from its own customers — a dynamic that could take years to play out but is already moving stock prices.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.