Nasdaq's worst day since 2025 hits chipmakers as voters reject data centres at the ballot box
The Nasdaq fell 5.5% on 5 November, its steepest drop since April 2025, with Nvidia and Qualcomm each down more than 9%. Investors fear AI infrastructure spending will slow after US voters rejected local data-centre projects in all but one of 41 ballot measures.
US technology shares suffered their sharpest fall in more than a year on 5 November, according to CNBC. The Nasdaq dropped 5.5%, the steepest one-day decline since April 2025, and chipmakers bore the brunt. Nvidia and Qualcomm each lost more than 9%, with Nvidia shedding almost $450 billion in market value. AMD, Micron and Applied Materials fell by double digits.
Qualcomm's cautious forecast for the current quarter added fuel, even though the company reported $650 million of data-centre revenue. Chief executive Cristiano Amon argued the issue was supply rather than demand: "We don't have a demand issue; it's a supply issue." Larger platform companies fell less, with Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft each down 2% to 4%.
The backdrop was the previous day's election. Ballotpedia tracked 41 local measures across ten states that would restrict data-centre construction, and CNBC reports voters sided with restrictions in every case except one, in Harwood, North Dakota. States with the most ambitious AI build-out plans, including Texas, Ohio and Georgia, also returned Democratic results in key races.
Investors are now weighing whether AI infrastructure spending can continue at its recent pace amid rising rates, heavy capital needs and revenue that remains modest relative to debt. Meta said that building data centres is "going to be harder" after the election.
Why it matters
The AI compute boom has depended on easy access to land, power and local consent. If community opposition hardens, the cost and timing of capacity can shift, and the effects would travel through chip suppliers, cloud pricing and the model providers that rent that capacity.
The episode is a reminder that AI equities are sensitive to politics as well as technology, and that a single quarter's forecast can reprice an entire supply chain.
Indicops view
Indian organisations buying cloud AI capacity should treat compute prices and availability as variable rather than fixed. Contracts with reserved capacity, multi-cloud options and a willingness to use smaller, efficient models are sensible hedges, while domestic data-centre plans should invest early in community and power-supply planning.
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