The chip panic went global on Tuesday, with South Korea and other Asian markets taking a battering as investors worried the artificial-intelligence trade would fail to endure the looming earnings season.

South Korea's tech-heavy KOSPI index plunged 5.5%, with trading being halted at one point due to excessive volatility.

The slump came as the index's two largest members by total valuation got hammered. Memory-chip makers Samsung and SK Hynix dropped 7.4% and 10%, respectively, on Tuesday.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 closed down 1.8%, while China's CSI 300 slid 0.3%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng bucked the trend with a 0.3% gain.

The selloff suggests the fears that plagued the U.S. market at the start of this week have spread to Asia. The PHLX Semiconductor Index dropped 2.7% on Monday as investors ditched chip stocks.

There wasn't an obvious catalyst for the slump, but China's CXMT was one source of worry. The Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung rival said it had advanced development of a new chip that can store more data.

"There has been a big sell-off in tech overnight, seemingly on concerns over Chinese AI competition," said Deutsche Bank analyst Jim Reid, noting the KOSPI locked in its worst two-day performance since July.

Comments made by Broadcom CEO Hock Tan weren't helping, either. Tan said at an event in Singapore that many AI investors "have no clue what they are investing in," comparing them to gamblers in "a casino."