Japanese tech stocks extend losses for second straight day

Japanese chip-related stocks extended losses for a second straight day as Chinese startup DeepSeek cast doubt on U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence.

Shares of Advantest, a supplier of semiconductor testing equipment, fell more than 10%, while Tokyo Electron fell 3.6% and Renesas Electronics fell 2.29% on Tuesday.

SoftBank Group Corp., which owns chip designer Arm, fell 5.26%. Data center-related stocks also continued to decline, with wire and cable companies Furukawa and Fujikura falling 8.22% and 8.1%, respectively, according to CNBC.

DeepSeek launched a free smart assistant last week, claiming it uses less data and costs much less than existing rival services.