According to Yonhap, HKET and Focus Taiwan, Asian equities opened sharply lower on Wednesday as a heavy overnight selloff in US semiconductor shares rippled across the region, hammering chipmakers from Seoul to Taipei. Wall Street's SOX chip gauge sank nearly 5% overnight, with the Nasdaq closing down 1.3% at 26,289 as rising bond yields and worries over higher oil prices soured sentiment.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 fell 2.14%, or 1,442.86 points, to 66,017.87 as of 01:38 UTC, dragged by chip-related names. Tokyo Electron lost 2.23% and Sony slipped 1.59%, while Advantest bucked the trend to rise 0.78%.

Seoul's KOSPI plunged 4.34%, or 298.13 points, to 6,571.70 as of 01:38 UTC. The Korea Exchange activated a sell-side sidecar at 09:06 a.m. local time, suspending program trading for five minutes after KOSPI 200 futures dropped 5% or more; the index had opened 4.96% lower and shed 5.6% to 6,485.01 by 09:07 a.m. Chipmakers led the rout, with Samsung Electronics down 5.77% and SK hynix off 6.98%.

Hong Kong stocks opened weaker but held up better than regional peers. The Hang Seng Index opened down 124 points at 25,346, easing 0.46% to 25,353.33 as of 01:38 UTC, while the Hang Seng Tech Index fell 1.3% to 4,678. Baidu sank more than 12% after posting a 68% drop in second-quarter net profit to 2.32 billion yuan, and China Unicom fell over 7% following a 34.6% decline in interim profit. Xiaomi bucked the market, rising 3% despite a 43% fall in adjusted quarterly profit, and Towngas gained nearly 3%.

Taiwan's TAIEX opened down 692.82 points at 44,615.24, breaching the 45,000 level, and stood 1.10% lower at 44,808.89 as of 01:38 UTC. TSMC fell 35 New Taiwan dollars, or about 1.47%, to 2,345, weighing heavily on the index. Selling spread across electronics, with Innolux down about 6% and Nanya Technology off about 6%.

In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite eased 0.84% to 3,956.78, the Shenzhen Component fell 2.07% to 14,319.46 and the ChiNext dropped 2.61% to 3,608.99 as of 01:38 UTC, pressured by chip and hardware names. Humanoid-robot maker Unitree made its debut on Shanghai's STAR Market, opening sharply higher.