Stock markets mostly rose Friday driven by investor optimism over AI and US rate-cut hopes, which overshadowed concerns about a government shutdown dragging on.

A rally in tech stocks was given another lift on Friday by an agreement between Japan’s Hitachi and ChatGPT developer OpenAI to work on AI and energy.

Shares in Hitachi jumped more than 10 percent, with other Japanese tech firms and investment giant SoftBank following suit.

The advance helped push Tokyo’s Nikkei 1.9 percent higher.

European markets also advanced, led by banks and mining stocks.

Hong Kong retreated, while Shanghai was closed for a holiday.

A surge in AI investment this year has helped push the valuations of some of the sector’s biggest names to eye-watering levels — with US chip titan Nvidia topping $4 trillio

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