S. Korean firm's debut plunge adds to investor concerns about AI spending

A 32 percent drop in shares of South Korea's Elice Group on Tuesday renewed investor concerns about the sustainability and the payoff cycle for the vast amount of capital pouring into the AI buildout amid growing scrutiny of company valuations. The plunge in shares of the provider of AI arcloud services as well as AI-based education and business software made it the worst debut ever in South Korea for a company that raised more than $100 million in an IPO, according to Dealogic data. Elice raised 201.1 billion won ($150 million) in its IPO, and said that it planned to spend most of the proceeds on launching portable modular data centres and related infrastructure. The stock's poor first day of trading contributed to renewed weakness in AI-linked stocks on Wall Street on Tuesday, with shares in neocloud firms including CoreWeave and Nebius Group both falling more than 5 percent. Elice's slide had earlier weighed on the broader South Korean market, a poster child for global AI trade and investor sentiment, with the benchmark KOSPI falling 3.73 percent to its lowest closing level since Apri