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securities times reporter wang xiaowei

the market expects that the development of the global artificial intelligence industry will enter the "iphone moment". this judgment can be confirmed by the strategic deployment of software and hardware companies, and can also be found in the financial reports of major companies at home and abroad. the aigc wave that began in early 2023 began to sway in the semi-annual reports of many a-share companies this year.

ai has driven the performance of listed companies to rise, and the performance of companies in the computing power industry chain is the most obvious, especially optical module and idc companies. many companies have achieved eye-catching semi-annual performance. taking the optical module leader zhongji xuchuan as an example, the company's net profit scale in the first half of this year suddenly jumped to 2.358 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 284.26%, exceeding the scale of last year's full-year net profit. zhongji xuchuan made it clear in its semi-annual report that the growth of computing power infrastructure construction and related capital expenditures has brought about a substantial increase in sales of 800g and 400g high-end optical modules. the net profit growth rate of five companies including tianfu communication and hytera exceeded 50%.

the global artificial intelligence industry is developing rapidly, ai large model capabilities are advancing by leaps and bounds, industry applications are expanding, and end-side ai is accelerating new products. these have driven the strong demand for ai computing infrastructure construction, which in turn has led to a rapid increase in upstream demand for optical modules and idc. wind statistics show that as of august 30, among a-share companies, the growth rates of operating income in the first half of the year for optical modules and idc sectors were 69% and 79% respectively, and the growth rates of net profit attributable to parent companies were 123% and 35% respectively.

as the core driving force of the new round of artificial intelligence wave, natural language processing and large models are key. at present, the semi-annual reports of large model players in the a-share market have been basically announced. overall, there are characteristics of "increased revenue and reduced profits". obviously, large models are still in the early stage of high investment. increased r&d investment is the price these companies need to bear to "fight for the future." iflytek's revenue in the first half of the year increased by nearly 19% year-on-year, but its net profit turned from profit to loss, with a loss of more than 400 million yuan in 6 months, and the loss after deducting non-operating items further increased to 483 million yuan. the company explained that this was mainly because of the new investment of more than 650 million yuan in large model research and development, industrial landing and expansion, which affected profitability.

whether the revenue of many companies will grow depends on ai empowerment. iflytek spark big model can fully match gpt-4 turbo and is gradually applied to all iflytek businesses. the company's smart hardware business, education business and open platform in consumer business have achieved impressive revenue growth, and these are the key areas where big models can play a role.

however, the increase in r&d investment is a common problem faced by all companies involved in the implementation of artificial intelligence + scenarios. taking tonghuashun as an example, the company's important strategy in the first half of the year was to increase its ai layout, especially to concentrate resources on the field of artificial intelligence large models. 360, the first company in the a-share market to release a large model, released its semi-annual report on the evening of august 30, showing that with the support of ai and other factors, the company's r&d investment intensity has risen to 41.05%.

a more typical example is byd. wang chuanfu, chairman and president of the company, said recently that byd has a team of nearly 5,000 engineers in the field of intelligent driving, and will invest 100 billion yuan in the field of intelligence in the future, focusing on technologies including generative ai and large models for research and development. in the first half of 2024, byd's r&d investment was 20.177 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 41.64%, and 6.064 billion yuan higher than the net profit in the same period.

ai empowerment is not exclusive to it companies. since the outbreak of ai in 2023, it has not only directly detonated the ai ​​chip, computing power and other industrial chains, but also brought new life to ai terminals such as pcs and mobile phones. it has also empowered thousands of industries through "ai+", bringing a new round of industrial opportunities. wanhua chemical, a leading chemical company, is trying to deeply integrate ai with the real economy. through artificial intelligence, it continuously trains and iterates, outputs feasible solutions, and greatly shortens the experimental time.