End of Infrastructure Euphoria: AI Operator Elice’s Shares Crash 33% Post-IPO

The capital market has initiated a harsh repricing of AI infrastructure valuations. On October 20, 2026, the KOSDAQ debut of South Korean firm Elice Group (a developer of AI clouds and modular data centers) turned into a disaster. On its very first day of trading, the stock collapsed by 33%, plunging from 90,500 to 60,500 won.

Despite successfully raising $150 million to build new data centers, institutional investors engaged in an aggressive sell-off. This crash is a clear indicator of the sector's "cooling." The mere phrase "AI infrastructure" no longer guarantees growth multiples. Exchanges have realized that competition for computing power is leading to the commoditization of cloud services, and the return on gigantic capital investments (CAPEX) is questionable. Speculative capital is exiting hardware, demanding transparent unit economics and real margins from startups.

Source: KOSDAQ / Reuters / WSJ