US stock futures were steady on Tuesday after the major averages came under pressure to start the week, dragged lower by a selloff in semiconductor shares amid mounting safety concerns around artificial intelligence development. In Monday’s regular session, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.56%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow declined 0.48% and 0.29%, respectively.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged a slower pace of AI development to better manage the risks posed by increasingly powerful models, a stance backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI CEO Elon Musk. Chipmakers led the decline, with notable losses in Nvidia (-3.4%), Micron (-5.3%), Sandisk (-5%), AMD (-4.4%) and Intel (-5.6%).
Sentiment was further pressured by elevated oil prices and rising Treasury yields ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve policy decision. Markets are currently pricing in about a 92% chance that the Fed will raise interest rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday.