Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 1.73 percent to 59,139.58. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.73 percent to 26,137.49, and China's Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.17 percent to 4,033.92.
South Korea's benchmark KOSPI also extended its gains, rising 1.71 percent to 6,195.54, while the junior KOSDAQ gained 1.11 percent to 1,165.20 shortly after the day's trading began.
Large-cap stocks mostly traded higher. Among chipmakers, Samsung Electronics rose 1.66 percent to 214,500 won, and SK hynix gained 0.79 percent to 1,145,000 won.
Auto stocks were also broadly higher, led by Hyundai Motor, which jumped 5.71 percent to 537,000 won, on growing expectations for the commercialization of autonomous driving technologies. The automaker has laid out its roadmap through the adoption of NVIDIA's Hyperion platform and a collaboration with Google DeepMind on vision-language-action (VLA) models.
The gains were further supported by comments from president José Muñoz, highlighting a broader push into future mobility technologies. He stressed plans to expand autonomous driving capabilities and integrate robotics into manufacturing including the deployment of Boston Dynamics' Atlas humanoid robots on assembly lines.
Its affiliates including Kia, Hyundai Mobis and Hyundai Glovis, also rose 4.09 percent, 3.13 percent and 2.72 percent, respectively.
Among other major companies, SK Square rose 2.26 percent to 680,000 won, and Hanwha Aerospace added 1.59 percent to 1,533,000 won. Doosan Enerbility surged 5.95 percent to 110,400 won, while HD Hyundai Heavy Industries climbed 4.21 percent to 494,500 won.
Financials sectors were also higher, with KB Financial Group up 2.59 percent at 162,300 won and Samsung Life Insurance gaining 1.36 percent to 261,500 won.
In particular, communications and broadcasting equipment maker Innox Instruments was the top gainer across both the KOSPI and the KOSDAQ since Feb. 27, surging more than tenfold, or 1,042.11 percent, over the period. It was trading at 4,450 won in morning trade, up 2.53 percent from the previous close.
The rally also extended across the broader optical communications value chain. Wooriro jumped 882.70 percent, followed by Kwang Electronics at 773.71 percent, Gigalein at 480.28 percent, Bit & Electronics at 468.00 percent, and Taihan Fiberoptics at 383.52 percent.
Momentum accelerated after Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang highlighted photonics as a key future technology at its annual tech conference GTC in San Jose last month, drawing investor attention to companies involved in optical semiconductors, fiber optics and cable infrastructure.
The trend is driven by long-term demand. As global tech companies invest more in data centers and artificial intelligence (AI)-related infrastructure, demand for faster data transmission is expected to grow, supporting further gains in the sector.
Meanwhile, Samchundang Pharm, which had been previously flagged for not properly reporting earnings forecasts on March 31, fell in early trading after the Korea Exchange referred the company to its KOSDAQ disclosure review committee. The stock was trading at 532,000 won as of around 10 a.m., down 4.14 percent.
Among other stocks on the KOSDAQ, performance was mixed across sectors. Battery materials stocks saw modest gains, with EcoPro rising 0.95 percent to 149,300 won and EcoPro BM adding 1.23 percent to 205,000 won. Pharmaceutical and biotech stocks showed mixed moves. Alteogen edged down 0.40 percent to 371,500 won, while Celltrion Pharm gained 1.47 percent to 620,000 won. ABL Bio rose 1.77 percent to 166,700 won, and Kolon TissueGene jumped 3.44 percent to 108,400 won. HLB declined 3.37 percent to 65,900 won.
The Korean won was slightly weaker against the dollar, trading at 1,475.10 won, compared with the previous close of 1,474.20.
Earlier, the S&P 500 on Wall Street rose 0.80 percent to close at 7,022.95 overnight, setting a record high. The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.59 percent to 24,016.02 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down 0.15 percent to 48,463.72.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.