AI sector slides sharply after Anthropic CEO urges slower model advancement

The previously resilient AI trade has officially been rattled.

AI equities suffered heavy losses in Monday’s pre‑market session after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a 3,800‑word essay expressing concerns that have shaken confidence across the semiconductor and AI infrastructure space.

Leading AI‑related companies saw double‑digit declines: Marvell and SK Hynix fell 7 % each, while CoreWeave, SanDisk, Intel, and AMD dropped 6 %, and Micron and Super Micro were down 5 %.

Even the sector’s two crown jewels, Nvidia and Broadcom, slipped about 3 % in pre‑market trading.

Over the past two days, AI leaders—Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman—have heightened concerns about the technology they are advancing.

“Over the last few months, I have become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence — not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up,” Amodei stated in a 3,800-word essay on Saturday. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of A.I. models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”

Altman quickly responded, agreeing with his rival Amodei.

He followed up early Monday with a cautionary post on X.

“There are two ways AI progress could go very badly, and that we must avoid. First, we could lose control of the future to AI. This is unacceptable; we are unapologetically on Team Humanity, and AI must always serve people. To ensure that, we need ways to ensure that alignment and safety techniques stay ahead of progress in model capabilities,” Altman wrote in an X post around 12:57 am ET.

He continued, “Second, we could end up in a world with too much concentration of power. If an extraordinarily powerful AI is used by one person or company to impress their worldview onto everyone else, the results could be extremely dystopian. Avoiding these two threats requires walking a narrow middle path; for example, one country could gain too much power. Another example is one lab ending up with too much power.”

Bernstein analyst Madison Rezaei outlined a framework focused on reducing security risks through independent review, coordinated safety standards, and international cooperation.

Rezaei clarified that the essay is not a call to cut capital spending or halt model training, though investors are now weighing the implications of a possible slowdown.

CoreWeave is identified as the most exposure‑sensitive name in Rezaei’s coverage to a potential AI slowdown.

Rezaei estimates that 25 % of CoreWeave’s existing U.S. power capacity and an additional roughly 74 % of its contracted power are located in Tier 3 and Tier 4 markets. The backlog consists largely of take‑or‑pay contracts, so demand risk mainly pertains to yet‑unsold rural power if training slows.

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