The market is focusing on the Foreign Ministry's statement that China and the U.S. will maintain communication regarding President Trump's visit to China. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian presided over a regular press conference. A Reuters reporter asked: President Trump of the United States has confirmed the postponement of his visit to China, stating that the meeting with the Chinese side will take place in about five to six weeks, and he mentioned that China has accepted this. Does China approve of this schedule? Furthermore, as this move allows more time for both sides to prepare for the summit, will China use this opportunity to promote more substantive discussions between the two leaders during the meeting? Lin Jian stated that head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-U.S. relations, and the two sides will continue to communicate on the matter of President Trump's visit.
Baidu Intelligent Cloud issued an announcement today regarding price adjustments for products including AI computing power and storage. Affected by the rapid global development of AI applications, demand for computing power continues to rise. Significant increases have occurred in the costs of core hardware and related infrastructure. To ensure the long-term stable operation and service quality of the platform, structural optimizations have been made to the prices of some products. Among them, services related to AI computing power products will increase by approximately 5% to 30%; parallel file storage and others will increase by approximately 30%. These new prices will take effect from 00:00 on April 18, 2026 (Beijing Time).
Jiangsu Province announced that it will cultivate and develop over 1,000 complete communities by 2030. The Jiangsu Provincial Government held a press conference on the "Action Plan for Promoting High-Quality Urban Development in Jiangsu." It was reported that Jiangsu will continue to advance the construction of complete communities, coordinating the development of embedded service facilities and 15-minute便民生活圈s. By 2030, the province aims to cultivate and build over 1,000 complete communities. The Action Plan proposes coordinated construction of embedded service facilities and 15-minute便民生活圈s, improving facilities for childcare, elderly care, assistance for persons with disabilities, healthcare, culture and sports, commerce, government services, greening, and parking according to local conditions. It also includes implementing actions to enhance property service quality and supporting professional institutions in integrally undertaking the maintenance of residential community properties and surrounding supporting service facilities.
Indian photovoltaic manufacturer Waaree Energies Ltd. has officially commenced construction of its integrated photovoltaic ingot and wafer manufacturing plant located in the Butibori Industrial Area of Nagpur, Maharashtra. This plant, with a planned capacity of 10GW each for ingots and wafers, will become India's largest integrated production base of its kind upon completion. It is understood that the project covers an area of approximately 300 acres with a total investment of about 62 billion Indian Rupees, focusing primarily on the production of high-purity photovoltaic ingots and wafers.
PwC, one of the Big Four international accounting firms, released a report stating that the core scenarios for AI application in financial institutions currently cover areas such as customer service optimization, fraud risk detection, and predictive analytics. "Different financial institutions have varying focuses in their deployment and application of AI," PwC pointed out. "In the asset and wealth management industry, AI is applied to investment and portfolio management, as well as data and market analysis. The banking sector concentrates on risk control, anti-money laundering, and compliance tasks, while the insurance industry focuses on enhancing agent capabilities, customer service, and claims processing." PwC further indicated that, overall, the primary sources of return on investment from AI for financial institutions lie in three areas: first, reducing risk losses; second, increasing revenue; and third, cutting costs. However, PwC emphasized that the large-scale promotion of AI by financial institutions still faces multiple constraints, with talent shortages and organizational structure issues being core obstacles whose impact far exceeds that of budget or technical challenges.
Howard Marks, Co-Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management and a Wall Street value investing master, stated on Tuesday that artificial intelligence (AI) is making the world more difficult to predict than ever before, and its impact is still underestimated. Marks mentioned that although AI has not yet disrupted his own firm's business model, he admitted that he has begun using AI to draft memos for clients. Marks suggested that investors might be better off buying stocks of AI-related companies rather than lending money to them (debt investment).
The relative allocation advantages of Chinese assets are becoming increasingly evident. The direct impact of the U.S.-Iran geopolitical conflict on China's economy is limited and controllable. Faced with a complex and volatile international situation, China has maintained strategic resolve, and its market recognition continues to improve. Against the backdrop of declining global risk appetite, Chinese assets are demonstrating increasingly prominent relative allocation advantages, benefiting from the steady decline in domestic risk levels. There is no need for excessive concern over potential short-term periodic lows in indices; the core pattern of medium-term oscillation with a bias towards strength possesses strong resilience and is unlikely to change easily. The escalation of geopolitical conflicts further strengthens the investment theme related to supply chain resilience. The mid-cap blue-chip style is not only unlikely to weaken but its logic is also expected to extend from单纯的周期品涨价 to broader dimensions of "security" and "autonomous controllability." The current market may be in a window of valuation rotation within this style.
Investment Opportunities: Rising energy prices in Europe present development opportunities for China's heat pump industry chain. The escalation of conflict in the Middle East is reshaping Europe's energy landscape, accelerating the substitution towards clean energy. Since February, the U.S.-Iran conflict has continued to escalate. Iran has carried out retaliatory strikes against Israel and some surrounding Arab countries and implemented blockade measures on the Strait of Hormuz, a global core energy shipping channel, as a firm countermeasure against the U.S. This event directly triggered a sharp rise in global crude oil prices. Under the传导 of energy substitution effects, European natural gas prices also surged. As of March 16, European natural gas futures prices had approached 52 euros per megawatt-hour, with a cumulative increase of 83.9% year-to-date. The持续上移 of natural gas price benchmarks directly increases heating costs for European households using燃气. Data shows that fossil fuel boilers account for as much as 78% of annual heating equipment sales in the EU. In this context, to balance household energy expenses, demand for more economical heat pump equipment has significantly increased. It is anticipated that the penetration rate of heat pumps in the European market will enter a phase of accelerated growth.
China is the global core production base for heat pumps, with a prominent share of exports to Europe. According to statistics from the Heat Pump Professional Committee of the China Energy Conservation Association, global production of air-source heat pumps reached 4.456 million units in 2024, with China's production accounting for 58%, firmly holding the position as the world's largest production base. In terms of export structure, over 50% of China's air-source heat pump exports are directed to the European market, forming a stable supply system to Europe. Benefiting from the accelerated penetration trend of the European heat pump market, coupled with China's core advantages in industrial chain support and production scale, domestic enterprises related to heat pump exports to Europe have entered a period of strategic development opportunity.
Focusing on two core themes to grasp strategic opportunities in the export chain: The escalation of conflict in the Middle East has pushed up the benchmark energy prices in Europe. Combined with the implementation of Europe's long-term energy transition strategy and ongoing EU subsidies for economically advantageous heat pump heating and cooling equipment, related export chain targets possess clear growth logic and are entering a strategic allocation window. The upstream core segments of the heat pump industry chain include compressors, motors, and metal processing. The demand for such components is directly linked to the scale of complete unit exports. Against the backdrop of booming demand in the European market, upstream component manufacturers are expected to experience significant order elasticity and have strong certainty in earnings growth. Related targets include: Rujing Technology (301525), 600***, 603***, etc.
Policies continue to add momentum, deepening computing-power and electricity synergy. Policy-driven synergy and upgrade in the computing-power and electricity industries. Since 2021, the national level has continuously introduced specialized policies, gradually constructing a top-level design framework for the synergistic development of computing power and electricity. By promoting the construction of a two-way协同 mechanism between computing power scheduling and power supply, the industry is加速 forming an intelligent closed-loop ecosystem characterized by "bits driving watts, and watts supporting bits." Based on current industry growth trends, it is predicted that the market size for computing-power and electricity synergy could reach 110 terawatt-hours by 2026. The deep integration of green electricity and computing power has become a core direction for high-quality industrial development, with broad market prospects.
The cost advantage of green electricity empowers the global competitiveness of Token. The layout and construction of green electricity hubs effectively reduce the electricity costs of computing power operations. Low-cost power supply has become a core competitiveness for China's Token industry going global. According to monitoring data from the OpenRouter platform, in the third week of February 2026, the share of Token consumption by Chinese models surpassed that of the United States for the first time, reaching 61%. Within the past month, MiniMax M2.5 and DeepSeek V3.2 ranked first and third, respectively, in the global Token consumption list. From February 2025 to February 2026, the share of Token consumption by Chinese models increased by a substantial 421% year-on-year. This new model of digital trade, characterized by "electricity not crossing borders, but computing power value crossing borders," is gradually building a core barrier for China's AI industry to participate in global competition.
Core technical pathways for computing-power and electricity synergy. The main technical implementation paths for current computing-power and electricity synergy include three types: physical direct supply, virtual direct supply, and cluster direct supply. New computing power projects are predominantly based on the physical direct supply model, retrofits of existing projects mostly adopt the virtual direct supply scheme, and cluster direct supply is a typical application form in the industry. The core commonality of these three pathways lies in achieving precise resource matching between electricity-rich regions and computing power demand regions through grid direct connection or virtual power plant scheduling mechanisms, ultimately realizing a win-win situation of optimized electricity costs and efficient utilization of surplus power.
Mainstream business models for computing-power and electricity synergy. The industry has formed a diversified business model system, mainly including the Energy Performance Contracting (EMC) model, the Long-Term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) model, the integrated energy services model combining energy and computing, and the operational model of virtual power plants participating in the electricity spot market. These provide mature commercial support for the implementation of computing-power and electricity synergy.
Within the computing-power and electricity synergy sector, four types of enterprises with core investment value can be focused on: Traditional power companies transitioning: Jinkai New Energy (600821), 001***, 002***. Green electricity operators: 600***. Scheduling software service providers: Guoneng Rixin (301162), 688***, 300***. Leading power engineering companies: PowerChina (601669), 601***.
The above content is based on comprehensive analysis and is for investment reference only. It does not constitute investment advice. The stock market involves risks, and caution is required in operations.
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