The fifth annual equity investment conference organized by CITIC Securities opened in Nanjing on August 20, 2026. This year's gathering arrives at a pivotal moment as China's domestic equity markets experience sustained recovery while long-term capital accelerates its entry into the sector, creating a fresh window of opportunity for technology venture financing. The two-day event attracted approximately 2,000 registered attendees, with over 100 companies participating and conducting roadshows, and more than 1,400 people present on the opening day. The conference brought together distinguished academics, technology company founders, financial institution leaders, and heads of prominent equity investment firms to engage in deep discussions on frontier areas including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum technology, tech-finance integration, and equity investment strategies, establishing an efficient platform connecting industry, capital, and scientific research.
Gao Yuxiang, senior executive and chief equity investment officer at CITIC Securities, who also serves as party secretary of CITIC Jinshi, delivered the opening address, emphasizing that equity investment serves as a vital bridge linking capital with industry and plays a pivotal role in fostering a virtuous cycle among technology, industry, and finance. Drawing on CITIC Securities' integrated advantages across investment, investment banking, and research, the firm is concentrating its efforts on strategic emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence, biomedicine, new energy, and high-end equipment, providing comprehensive full-lifecycle financial services to enterprises at different development stages and continuously empowering technological innovation and industrial upgrading through capital deployment.
During his subsequent keynote presentation, Gao Yuxiang noted that from the perspectives of policy support, emerging industry development, computing power investment potential, capital supply, and exit environment, "the spring of technology investment" has arrived. However, he cautioned against overheating in certain sectors and stressed the importance of maintaining rationality in investment and financing activities. CITIC Securities' equity investment strategy will focus on AI infrastructure, energy and materials required for AI operations, as well as AI applications spanning large models, edge-side models, and embodied intelligence, with emphasis on industry leaders and increased investment intensity.
Xu Yingbo, co-head of the research department at CITIC Securities, moderated the main forum on the first morning. She noted that the domestic equity market continues to recover, long-term capital is steadily entering the market, and technology venture financing is embracing a new era of opportunity. The conference aims to unite industrial, research, and financial forces while establishing a comprehensive one-stop platform for industry-finance integration. Seven additional speakers at the main forum delivered presentations on topics including AI computing architecture, edge intelligence, quantum sensing, trustworthy EDA, technology investment, tech-finance, and equity investment market dynamics.
Professor Ye Le, doctoral supervisor at Peking University's School of Integrated Circuits and chief scientist at Micro-Nano Core Chip, highlighted that large model inference chips must simultaneously address the three major challenges of high performance, low power consumption, and low cost. He proposed that three-dimensional compute-in-memory (3D-CIM) architecture holds promise for enhancing computing density, bandwidth, and energy efficiency over traditional architectures by reducing data movement and increasing integration density. Combined with the RISC-V instruction set and 3D stacking technology, this approach can further unlock computing performance within mature manufacturing processes.
Professor Liu Zhiyuan, tenured professor at Tsinghua University's Department of Computer Science and co-founder and chief scientist of ModelBest, pointed out that the essence of large models lies not in their size but in their generality. As model architectures, data, learning methodologies, and software-hardware coordination continue to advance, "intelligence density" keeps rising. Meanwhile, terminal chip computing power grows steadily stronger, and these two trajectories will eventually converge, enabling increasingly powerful models to be deployed and run on PCs, smartphones, automobiles, robots, and other terminal devices, unlocking enormous potential for edge intelligence.
Dr. Bao Jie, founder, chairman, and chief scientist of Beijing Core Vision Technology, explained that as AI transitions from the digital world to the physical world, richer, real-time, and cost-effective physical data becomes essential. His team's original quantum dot spectral sensing technology integrates the core capabilities of traditional large-scale spectrometers into millimeter-scale sensors. The technology has already been deployed in urban water systems and holds potential for future expansion into agriculture, environmental monitoring, healthcare, and wearable devices.
Liu Jun, vice president of R&D at Xihuazhang Technology, noted that generative AI significantly improves code production efficiency while simultaneously elevating the importance of chip design verification. Trustworthy EDA fundamentally relies on deterministic EDA tools to validate AI outputs and establish traceable evidence chains. Xihuazhang has already deployed intelligent design and intelligent verification agents, with related testing achieving over 7x improvement in simulation efficiency, more than 10x enhancement in automated debugging efficiency, and 70x acceleration in automated formal verification.
Tian Ye, vice president, chief financial officer, and general manager of human resources at Shanghai Science & Technology Bank, observed that China has rapidly advanced to become a "global innovation hub," with hard technology sectors experiencing comprehensive growth and primary market fundraising and investment witnessing structural recovery. As China's first technology-focused bank, Shanghai Science & Technology Bank has established an "enterprise value + capital consensus" evaluation system aligned with VC/PE practices, deeply empowering technology enterprises through "equity-debt integration" and comprehensive ecosystem platforms, providing full-lifecycle equity-debt coordinated support for Chinese tech companies and serving as a robust bridge connecting China's innovation ecosystem with global counterparts.
Wan Shun, general manager of Nanjing Innovation Investment Group, shared practical experiences of local state-owned capital platforms in empowering technological innovation. The group has developed an investment framework combining fund-of-funds, direct investment, S-funds, and M&A activities, continuously advancing industrial strengthening initiatives built on market-oriented judgment. Nanjing is currently developing a science and technology fund district along the Zijin Mountain Innovation Belt, attracting outstanding fund managers and capital to fuel industrial and technological innovation.
CITIC Securities' research department simultaneously released its annual special report titled "Deep Research on China's Equity Market: Recovery with Differentiation, Reconstruction for Renewal." Liu Xiaotian, chief portfolio allocation analyst at CITIC Securities, stated that China's equity market, after more than four decades of development, has played a positive role in supporting new quality productive forces, meeting wealth management needs, and improving the capital market ecosystem. As of the end of June 2026, the total scale of equity fund management in China reached approximately 15.4 trillion yuan. Since 2025, overall equity market data has shown comprehensive recovery, yet significant divergence persists at the micro level: on the fundraising front, state-owned capital dominates while private capital and market-oriented LP investment willingness continues to decline; on the investment front, sectors exhibit pronounced K-shaped differentiation with capital highly concentrated in hard technology and advanced manufacturing; on the manager front, smaller institutions lacking core competitiveness face consolidation while industry resources further concentrate among leaders; on the exit front, semiconductors, biomedicine, and information technology account for the largest exit shares with continuously increasing concentration.
Simultaneously, the full-chain ecosystem of the equity market is undergoing significant transformation: LP structure is shifting from "dual-engine driving" toward a "unipolar era," transitioning from "financial returns" to "patient capital"; GP capabilities are restructuring from "financial investors" toward "industrial organizers," evolving from "passive exits" to "active management"; investment paradigms are shifting from "model innovation" toward "technology innovation," moving from "IRR narratives" to greater emphasis on DPI metrics; and exit channels are evolving from the "IPO single bridge" toward diversified exit pathways with greater focus on actual realization of investment returns. Looking ahead, patient capital institutional frameworks are expected to be further consolidated, GP landscapes will experience intensified survival-of-the-fittest dynamics, government investment funds will enter a phase of stock optimization, and investment philosophies will become more prudent and steady. The sources of excess returns are anticipated to gradually shift from "thematic consensus gaming" toward "forward-looking industrial chain positioning," while diversified exit mechanisms will continue to mature.
From three-dimensional compute-in-memory, edge intelligence, and quantum sensing to trustworthy EDA, and from technology investment to tech-finance and equity markets, the main forum of this equity investment conference comprehensively showcased the new wave of technology industry transformation and capital ecosystem restructuring. During the conference, six specialized sub-forums on specific industry sectors will be held, along with corporate roadshows, investor dialogues, and analyst exchanges, further promoting deep collaboration between industry and capital.
August 20, Nanjing. Related report: Deep Research on China's Equity Market: Recovery with Differentiation, Reconstruction for Renewal.
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