Equities jumped Thursday thanks to gains in tech stocks and as weak US jobs data fanned optimism for more interest rate cuts, outweighing concerns over a partial government shutdown.

Wall Street opened mostly higher with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite pushing higher from record closes.

In Europe, both Paris and Frankfurt stock markets jumped more than one percent, with automakers also rallying. London dipped.

Tech stocks surged as South Korea's biggest chip firms agreed to supply chips and other equipment to OpenAI's Stargate project for AI infrastructure.

South Korea's Kospi index climbed 2.7 percent to a record high, thanks to Samsung and SK hynix shares soaring to one-year highs after the firms signed a preliminary deal with the ChatGPT developer OpenAI.

Tokyo rose, as did H

See Full Page