China AIDCs and Supply Chain: Riding on robust demand for AI compute

Research evidence excerpt

China AIDCs and Supply Chain: Riding on robust demand for AI compute

23 June 2026

Equity Research Report

China AIDCs and Supply Chain EquitiesIT Services

Riding on robust demand for AI compute China

◆ We expect demand for AI compute in 2028e to be 5x that of Yiran Liu* (Reg. No. S1700520040001)

2025’s level as model training and inference needs grow… Head of A-share IT Software Research HSBC Qianhai Securities Limited

yiran1.liu@hsbcqh.com.cn

◆ … benefiting leaders in AI data centres (AIDCs) and supply +86 10 5795 2349

chain participants at various stages like switches Heng Zhang* (Reg. No. S1700524050001)

Analyst, A-share IT Software Research

HSBC Qianhai Securities Limited

◆ Initiate on Range and Ruijie with Buy ratings in separate reports heng.zhang@hsbcqh.com.cn

+86 10 5795 2384

Strong AI compute demand. We estimate China's AI compute demand to boom

* Employed by a non-US affiliate of HSBC Securities (USA) Inc, and is

and reach c5GW by 2028, c5x more than 2025, driven by explosive demand for large not registered/ qualified pursuant to FINRA regulations

language model training and inference. Domestic hyperscalers are rapidly boosting

their capex, with the combined spending of ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent reaching

RMB346bn in 2025 and set to more than double to over RMB700bn in 2026 (see Ex 6).

This is still well below the spending intensity of US peers, indicating there’s substantial

growth potential. Leading AIDC operators and key supply chain participants (like switch

vendors) should benefit.

AI network upgrades. We see the TAM for data centre switches – the high-speed

traffic controllers of a network – reaching RMB118bn in 2030e, implying a 28%

CAGR in 2025-30e, on 1) more layers being added to a network’s structure given