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Asia's Chipmakers Rose as Nvidia's CEO Crisis Deepened
Asian chip stocks led gains on November 12, 2026, with the Kospi up 1.2%, even as Nvidia fell more than 8% after hours on reports its CEO may be ousted.
If Nvidia's leadership crisis was going to hit the AI supply chain, Thursday morning in Asia was the first chance for it to show. It did not. Around 0230 GMT on November 12, 2026, Seoul's Kospi was up 1.2% at 5,463.98 and Tokyo's Nikkei 225 0.8% at 61,714.16, AFP reported, with SK hynix, Samsung, Kioxia and TSMC leading the gains. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was the exception, down 1.1%.
That came hours after Nvidia fell more than 8% in after-hours trading in New York on a Wall Street Journal report that its board was preparing to remove chief executive Jensen Huang. The stock is down about 20% since news of his affair with an executive of the Singapore data-centre firm Megaspeed broke, according to AFP. "Now, the biggest question surrounding the company is not about its chips, competitors or earnings," said Charu Chanana of Saxo Markets.
That sentence explains the divergence. Asian memory and foundry stocks trade on how many chips the AI industry buys, and Thursday's evidence on that front was strong: CoreWeave had just raised its 2026 revenue outlook and expects about $9 billion of customer prepayments in the next three months, and US memory stocks including Sandisk and Micron had jumped more than 10% during Wednesday's session. Who runs Nvidia matters for Nvidia's valuation; it does not change the number of data centres already under construction.
There are limits to that argument. Nvidia sits at the centre of the AI hardware stack and has no chair, no chief operating officer and no named successor, so a disorderly transition could slow product decisions or partnerships. And the after-hours fall left Nasdaq 100 futures more than 1% lower during the Asian session, a reminder that index-level risk still runs through one company.
For traders, the lesson of the morning is about separating company risk from industry risk. A shock tied to one firm's governance tends to hit that firm's shares and its closest proxies, while suppliers with diversified customers trade on demand data. If the board's decision drags on, that line may blur; for now, Asia's chipmakers are treating the Huang affair as Nvidia's problem, not theirs.
Sources: Kuwait Times (AFP) — Asian stocks extend gains as traders watch Nvidia leadership crisis; Yahoo Finance — Stock market today, Wednesday, November 11