On Friday, August 14, the AI sector on the ChiNext board led the market higher, with optical module and computing power leasing stocks showing strong activity. Optical module leaders rebounded, with Eoptolink Technology Inc Ltd and Tianfu Communication Co Ltd rising over 4%, while Zhongji Innolight Co Ltd gained more than 2%. Computing power leasing stocks strengthened, with Wangsu Science & Technology Co Ltd hitting the 20% daily limit in the afternoon session, and Aofei Data Co Ltd and Capitalonline Data Service Co Ltd advancing over 5%.
Among popular ETFs, the ChiNext AI ETF Huabao (159363), which heavily holds optical module leaders, continued to strengthen in the afternoon, closing up 3.04% in price. Sentiment noticeably improved, with the fund turning to net inflows of 10 million units for the day. On a weekly basis, the high-profile 159363 ETF continued its recovery trend, recording another positive week and achieving consecutive weekly gains.
Recently, US optical module leaders Coherent and Lumentum, computing power leasing giants CoreWeave and Nebius, as well as Chinese internet giant Tencent, have released their latest earnings and held conference calls, revealing new narratives in the AI industry. These developments have become a key support for the recent global AI market recovery. According to a summary by Industrial Securities, the core content from these tech giants' earnings and conference calls is as follows:
Coherent: Demand visibility is extremely high, progress on CPO/NPO (Co-packaged Optics/Neural Processing Optics) exceeds expectations, and indium phosphide (InP) capacity has been doubled ahead of schedule.
Lumentum: Demand for 1.6T products is strong, CPO visibility is improving, NPO provides entirely new incremental opportunities, and supply of indium phosphide is being secured at an accelerated pace.
CoreWeave: Computing power supply is insufficient to meet demand, with prices rising across the board; business is expanding into the AI inference market; depreciation concerns are not overly worrying; and customer diversification is accelerating.
Nebius: Demand for computing power leasing is extremely strong, ROI continues to improve, computing power prices are being raised, and customer prepayments are becoming a source of capital expenditure.
Tencent: Capital expenditure by Chinese internet giants continues to accelerate, AI-to-B business models have demonstrated monetization capability, and product strength is supporting the recovery of investments.
As the AI industry transitions from a "theme speculation" phase to a "performance delivery" stage, optical modules, with their high industry certainty, have become one of the most noteworthy sub-sectors in computing power investment. Based on the recent conference call signals and industry trends from global tech giants, the investment logic can be clearly summarized into two points:
Logic 1: Under a tight computing power supply scenario, optical module demand offers the strongest certainty.
Current computing power demand continues to outstrip supply, with customers beginning to lock in future capacity in advance. Long-term supply agreements (LTAs) provide clear guidance on both volume and price, significantly enhancing long-term demand visibility. Demand for next-generation products like 1.6T is being released ahead of expectations, and frontier technologies such as CPO and NPO are showing signs of acceleration, bringing incremental growth opportunities to the supply chain. Upstream core materials like indium phosphide remain in short supply, and optical module leaders with capacity and supply chain advantages will be the first to benefit from the expansion cycle.
Logic 2: The cloud transformation of computing power leasing and continued increases in domestic capital expenditure create a resonance of internal and external demand.
Computing power leasing providers are accelerating their evolution into a "new cloud factory" model, with cloud business growth and ROI continuously improving. New scenarios like AI inference are becoming a new pole of computing power demand, and each infrastructure expansion directly translates into procurement demand for high-speed optical modules. Domestically, Chinese internet giants, represented by Tencent, are further accelerating capital expenditure, and the AI-to-B monetization path has been preliminarily validated. Domestic optical module leaders are poised to benefit from both incremental orders from domestic computing power infrastructure construction and strong external demand from overseas cloud providers and computing power leasing giants, making their earnings elasticity highly promising.
To position along the high-optical main line, the ChiNext AI ETF Huabao (159363) and its off-exchange linked funds (Class A: 023407, Class C: 023408) focus on optical module CPO leaders while also covering AI applications. The underlying index, which includes Zhongji Innolight, Eoptolink Technology, and Tianfu Communication, has a combined weighting of approximately 40%, making it a core AI computing power flagship. The ChiNext AI ETF Huabao (159363) currently has a scale of about 7 billion yuan, with an average daily trading volume exceeding 1 billion yuan over the past six months, leading its peer group of 8 ETFs tracking the same index in terms of both scale and liquidity.
Data sources: Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, etc. *Institutional views reference source: Industrial Securities "Recent Tech Giant Earnings Calls: What New AI Narratives?" ETF fund-related fee explanation: Investors may be charged a commission of up to 0.5% by the subscription and redemption agent when subscribing or redeeming fund shares. On-exchange trading fees are subject to the actual charges of the securities company, and no sales service fee is charged. Link fund-related fee explanation: The ChiNext AI ETF Linked Fund Class C does not charge a subscription fee; redemption fees are 1.5% for holdings within 7 days and 0% for holdings of 7 days or more; the sales service fee is 0.3%. The ChiNext AI ETF Linked Fund Class A charges a subscription fee of 1% for amounts under 1 million yuan, 0.6% for amounts between 1 million yuan (inclusive) and 2 million yuan, and 1,000 yuan per transaction for amounts of 2 million yuan (inclusive) or more; redemption fees are 1.5% for holdings within 7 days and 0% for holdings of 7 days or more; no sales service fee is charged. Risk disclaimer: The ChiNext AI ETF Huabao passively tracks the ChiNext AI Index, which was established on December 28, 2018, and launched on July 11, 2024. The index's annual returns for 2021-2025 were: 17.57%, -34.52%, 47.83%, 38.44%, and 106.35%, respectively. The annualized volatility over the same period was 23.73%, 27.34%, 38.02%, 45.42%, and 41.1%. The index's constituent stocks are adjusted according to its compilation rules, and historical backtested performance does not predict future index performance. The index constituent stocks shown in this article are for demonstration purposes only, and descriptions of individual stocks do not constitute any form of investment advice, nor do they represent the holdings or trading activities of any fund managed by the fund manager. According to the fund manager's assessment, the ChiNext AI ETF Huabao has a risk rating of R4 (medium-high risk), suitable for proactive (C4) and above investors. The suitability matching opinion should be based on the sales institution. Any information appearing in this article (including but not limited to individual stocks, comments, forecasts, charts, indicators, theories, or any form of expression) is for reference only. Investors must be responsible for their own investment decisions. Additionally, any views, analyses, or forecasts in this article do not constitute investment advice to readers, nor are they responsible for any direct or indirect losses arising from the use of this content. Fund investment carries risks. The past performance of a fund does not represent its future performance. The performance of other funds managed by the fund manager does not constitute a guarantee of the fund's performance. Fund investment should be undertaken with caution. MACD golden cross signals are forming, and these stocks are showing good momentum!