CITIC Securities: AI investment opportunities are spreading, focusing on the computing power industry chain and AI applications

Since 2025, both Chinese and American technology stocks have achieved impressive results, with the computing power sector leading the market in terms of growth. There have also been opportunities for localized breakthroughs in models and applications. Looking forward to 2026, domestic computing power is on the rise, with both performance flexibility and investment certainty, potentially replicating the long bull market in US stocks since 2023. On one hand, the urgency of development for semiconductor equipment, AI chips, etc. under overseas control has increased, leading to a trend of domestic substitution. On the other hand, domestic chip factories have already begun exploring solutions such as super nodes, using advantages in multi-card quantity to make up for the single-card performance disadvantage and achieve a breakthrough in computing power. The construction of multi-card clusters raises higher requirements for the quantity and quality of components, bringing greater investment opportunities to the industry chain, with areas such as liquid cooling, storage, power supply, optical modules, PCB, quantum computing, etc. expected to see higher performance flexibility. Models and applications are also expected to see opportunities for localized breakthroughs, with promising prospects for internet technology giants empowered by AI, as well as AI applications with faster implementation speeds such as AI advertising, AI agents, AI video generation, and commercialized autonomous driving.