CLSA Expects Domestic AI Chips to Benefit from Computing Power Shortage, Substitution Process to Accelerate

CLSA said in a report that as agentic AI and multimodal applications, such as text-to-video and text-to-image, continue to gain traction, token usage has surged significantly. However, the broker expects supply of mainstream high-end chips to remain tight, leading to a shortage of computing power in the China market. Domestic AI chips are expected to benefit, with their advantages currently more suited to inference rather than training scenarios.CLSA estimates that the localization rate of domestic AI chips will be about 30% to 40% in 2025 and is projected to rise to 60% to 70% by 2030. The broker is optimistic about the acceleration of the substitution process for domestic AI chipsets, believing this will provide strong growth momentum for AI chips, advanced logic, advanced packaging and memory manufacturers.For stocks, the broker sets TP at HKD93.3 for SMIC (00981.HK) +4.600 (+7.154%) Short selling $1.50B; Ratio 12.049% H shares and RMB152 for SMIC (688981.SH) +5.520 (+4.975%) A shares. TP for Hua Hong Semiconductor (01347.HK) +5.400 (+4.995%) Short selling $1.08B; Ratio 12.724% H shares and Hua Hong Semiconductor (688347.SH) +3.850 (+2.774%) A shares are HKD129.5 and RMB177.5, respectively.Biren Technology (06082.HK) -0.040 (-0.086%) Short selling $17.59M; Ratio 3.582% has a TP of HKD46.3. JCET Group (600584.SH) +1.740 (+3.876%) has a TP of RMB67. GigaDevice (03986.HK) +17.200 (+3.827%) H shares and GigaDevice (603986.SH) +10.190 (+3.423%) A shares have TPs of HKD449 and RMB333.5, respectively. All the above stocks are rated Outperform. (ss/j)(HK stocks quote is delayed for at least 15 mins.Short Selling Data as at 2026-04-24 16:25.) (A Shares quote is delayed for at least 15 mins.)This article was automatically translated by AI, the Chinese version should be considered the authoritative version. AASTOCKS.com Limited does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness and accepts no liability for any damages or losses arising from the use of this translation.