Global Times | Shanghai Composite breaks 4,200 points as AI supercycle lifts Asian markets
Major stock indices in the Chinese mainland reached multi-year highs on Monday, fueled by the booming artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor sectors. Analysts attributed the rally to the ongoing AI supercycle, which has boosted the entire semiconductor, computing power and storage industrial chains, driven by improving profitability prospects and robust growth in domestic demand for AI computing power.
The Shanghai Composite Index topped 4,200 points, while the ChiNext Index surged past 3,900 points, the highest since June 16, 2015. The STAR Market 50 Index hit a fresh all-time intraday high.
Transactions on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets reached 3.54 trillion yuan ($520 billion), the fourth-highest level this year. Market turnover has remained above 3 trillion yuan for four consecutive trading days.
There was a strong rally in the semiconductor industrial chain. JCET Group closed at the daily limit and hit a new all-time high, with its market capitalization nearing 100 billion yuan. CSIC Special Gases surged by the 20 percent daily limit. The memory chip sector boomed, with Netac Technology and Puya Semiconductor both jumping by the 20 percent daily limit, and the liquid cooling server sector also moved higher.
At the close, the Shanghai Composite Index was up 1.08 percent, the Shenzhen Component Index was 2.16 percent higher, and the ChiNext Index was up 3.5 percent.
The AI supercycle also lifted broader Asian markets, with South Korean equities rallying to record levels amid a surge in chip heavyweights. SK Hynix surged more than 11.51 percent at the close, and Samsung Electronics rose 6.33 percent.
The KOSPI 200 Index soared more than 6 percent, triggering an intraday circuit breaker. The index closed up 4.32 percent at 7,822.24 points, its first close above the 7,800 threshold.
The core driver is AI computing power, which is starting to generate tangible revenue opportunities. For years, the AI industry was largely in a heavy investment cycle with uncertain commercial returns. Now many tech firms are rolling out monthly token subscriptions and direct computing power sales, attracting a growing number of paying users and suggesting rising commercial viability for this business model, Ma Jihua, a veteran tech analyst, told the Global Times on Monday.
China Securities Co said in a research note that domestic AI computing power is booming on both the supply and demand sides, and demand for computing power will keep rising. On the demand side, DeepSeek raised up to 50 billion yuan in its first financing round, mostly to expand its AI computing resources. Doubao's daily token consumption doubled, jumping from 60 trillion at the end of last year to 120 trillion in early April, Yicai reported.
Domestic chip supply is also expanding and being more widely used. IDC data showed that local chips took up 41 percent of China's cloud AI accelerator shipments in 2025, with Huawei ranking first in shipment volume, according to the research note.
CITIC Securities noted that the explosive surge in demand for AI computing power has driven strong exports of products across the semiconductor industrial chain, making this category the biggest contributor to China's export growth in April, according to Yicai.
In AI computing power, chips and storage, China and South Korea boast distinct strengths. China leverages its robust large‑language model research and development, world‑leading AI application rollout and vast domestic demand. South Korea excels in high‑end storage, semiconductor manufacturing and R&D, with deep China‑based R&D and production integration, Ma said.
The two nations are highly complementary. South Korea leads in hardware and manufacturing, China in application ecosystems and market scale. Both can deepen cooperation in software‑hardware integration, capacity alignment and market sharing, to capture dividends from the AI supercycle, Ma added.