HONG KONG — Korean retail investors, known for their aggressive trading style, are ramping up exposure to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI)-related stocks, even as their home market ranks among the world’s top performers. Data from SEIBro, a portal operated by the Korea Securities Depository, showed that Korean retail investors bought $507 million worth of Hong Kong-listed shares and $154 million of mainland-listed shares between Jan. 2 and Feb. 23. The data showed that total purchases had already matched the combined levels seen in the first two months of 2025, when the launch of Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek’s R1 model sparked a global rally in China’s technology sector. This year’s buying has been heavily concentrated in AI and semiconductor names. In Hong Kong, the most actively bought stock on a net basis was startup MiniMax AI, which has attracted $21 million from Korean retail investors since its January debut. Montage Technology, a Shanghai-based semiconductor company that debuted in February, followed with $19 million in net purchases. On mainland exchanges, semicondu