The Hang Seng Index fell 176.75 points, or 1 percent, to open at 17,474.74 points on Wednesday.

The sell-off follows a poor performance overnight on Wall Street, where the main indices dropped between 1.5 and 3.3 percent.

AI chip giant Nvidia saw its shares fall by almost 10 percent.

The US stock market losses come ahead of major employment data later in the week that will have a say in upcoming US monetary policy decisions. (with additional reporting from Xinhua and AFP)