Foreign investors eye AI, robotics opportunities in China

BEIJING - Foreign investors are increasingly turning their attention to China's A-share market, with a particular focus on the burgeoning opportunities in AI and robotics.

Nearly 100 foreign institutions have been actively researching China's A-share listed companies since February, conducting surveys at over 60 listed companies, Xinhua's financial newspaper Shanghai Securities Journal reported.

Analysts held that the trend underscores global investors' growing interest in China's accelerating advancements in AI large-scale models, robotics, and AI application industrial chains.

The momentum follows a wave of tech-driven innovations, exemplified by the recent breakthroughs by domestic AI company DeepSeek and viral performances by dancing robots at the nationally televised Spring Festival gala.

Foreign investors have actively engaged with Chinese listed companies to gather insights on topics such as the potential impact of DeepSeek on the AI industry, future industry trends in the robot sector and chip industry development, among others.

Kong Rong, an analyst with TF Securities, said that China is expected to see a surge in AI application opportunities, spanning both enterprise-focused sectors and consumer-oriented fields, such as e-commerce advertising, finance, and healthcare. China's AI industry is poised to attract increased global investment, potentially boosting the valuation of the entire AI industrial chain.

Several companies shared their future plans for robotics with foreign investors. Unilumin revealed its intention to upgrade its static robots into mobile, intelligent humanoid robots to meet the evolving demands of the AI companion product market.

Orbbec said that the humanoid robot sector is experiencing a clear upgrade trend with numerous industry giants entering the supply chain. The humanoid robot market is poised for rapid growth over the next few years, and the company's 3D visual perception products are expected to benefit from this development wave.

Addressing the comparative strengths of domestic and foreign machine vision manufacturers, OPT Machine Vision Tech noted that domestic enterprises have a deeper understanding of local customer needs and market dynamics. Therefore, domestic companies can respond swiftly to customer demands, with shorter delivery cycles and cost advantages, positioning them for increasing market share year by year.

Foreign institutions also focused on the growth of China's chip industry development. Since February, Montage Technology has hosted over 40 foreign institutions. The development of the company's various chips has been a hot topic of inquiry.

Montage Technology said its new chip products support a maximum speed of 12,800 million transfers per second, aiming to provide superior memory performance for next-generation computing platforms. The development meets the urgent demand for bandwidth in high-performance computing and artificial intelligence applications.

China's tech innovation boom has driven re-evaluation of asset values. Since the beginning of 2025, Chinese tech companies have shown impressive performance in the stock markets, Xinhua's financial newspaper China Securities Journal reported.

In the A-share market, the computer sector has seen a 20 percent increase since the beginning of this year. In the Hong Kong market, Alibaba's stock has surged by over 50 percent, while Xiaomi, Kuaishou, and Lenovo have seen their stock prices rise by more than 20 percent.

The concept of the "Magnificent Seven" in the U.S. market refers to a group of seven high-performing and influential stocks in the technology sector, including giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The strong performance of Chinese tech stocks has sparked discussions about potential members of "China Magnificent Seven." A recent report by Huatai Securities suggests that Xiaomi, BYD, SMIC, Alibaba, Tencent, and Meituan are poised to become core tech assets in China, according to China Securities Journal.

As Chinese tech companies continue to make breakthroughs, an increasing number of foreign financial institutions have expressed optimism about the prospect of the Chinese market.

"We think 2025 is the year the investing world realizes China is outcompeting the rest of the world," said Deutsche Bank in a recent report. "It's becoming impossible to not acknowledge that its corporates are delivering superior value for money, and often superior quality, across multiple spheres of manufacturing and increasingly services too."