Japan's Nikkei rallies as AI demand outlook brightens

By Reuters News

By Rocky Swift

TOKYO, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share gauge rallied on Wednesday on renewed optimism over demand in the red-hot AI sector.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 .N225 climbed 1.56% to 65,074.56 in early trading, while the broader Topix .TOPX gained 1.03% to 4,050.65.

US shares rose overnight, while AI-related sentiment was boosted by SpaceX's first profit as a public company. Separately, ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent were reported to have ordered more than 3 million Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 GPUs worth over $35 billion.

Japan's exports in September rose 16.7% from a year earlier, government data showed on Wednesday, lower than forecast but still demonstrating resilient demand for semiconductors and AI-related products.

"Following the firm tone in the US market, the Japanese market is expected to open today with buyers having the upper hand," Monex Securities analyst Yoshitaka Araya said in a report.

There were 140 advancers in the Nikkei 225 against 85 decliners.

The largest percentage gainers in the index were Mitsui Kinzoku 5706.T, up 7.10%, followed by Ibiden 4062.T, trading 5.92% higher, and JX ADVANCED META 5016.T, which gained 5.22%.

The largest losers were Toho 9602.T, down 3.41%, followed by Shift 3697.T, trading 2.88% lower, and Aeon 8267.T, which lost 2.46%.

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