The boom in AI data center construction has prompted a reduction in the supply of memory chips, and potentially a rise in prices of consumer products such as smartphones and personal computers this year, Financial Times reported.

Several semiconductor giants, including Arm (ARM.US), Qualcomm (QCOM.US), and Samsung, warned this week that the global race to build large AI infrastructure is squeezing the supply of components needed for mobile devices and other home electronics, report said.

Over the past year, companies like Alphabet (GOOG.US), Amazon (AMZN.US), Meta (META.US), and OpenAI have pledged billions of US dollars to build data centers to support advanced AI models and products, believing that the technology will transform various industries.
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According to Sensor Tower, ChatGPT's mobile MAUs surpassed 870 million in November 2025, capturing a market share as high as 63%, CICC wrote in its research report.

Gemini, meanwhile, was leveraging Google's vast ecosystem to catch up with the pace of ChatGPT. In China, ByteDance's Doubao emerged as a winner with hundreds of millions of daily active users. CICC suggested investors should pay attention to the competitive landscape among Chinese and international players, as well as trends in agentization and commercialization.

The report also highlighted chatbots' position as the "Killer App" in the AI era. While the core transformation of the internet stemmed from changes in production relations, which gave rise to "Killer Apps" such as social networks and UGC content platforms as ordinary users could easily become creators, the core transformation of large AI models lies in productivity, enabling them to efficiently understand user needs and generate content, which eventually leads to the emergence of chatbots.

Currently, chatbots' average monthly active days per user, daily usage time, and retention rates are gradually approaching those of social platforms. Their penetration in work, learning, and entertainment scenarios also continues to deepen.

CICC's investment ratings and target prices for chatbot-related stocks:

Stock | Investment Rating | Target Price
TENCENT (00700.HK) | Outperform | HKD700
BABA-W (09988.HK) | Outperform | HKD197
BIDU-SW (09888.HK) | Outperform | HKD196
Meta (META.US) | Outperform | USD773
Alphabet (GOOGL.US) | Outperform | USD303
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A report by Microsoft (MSFT.US) suggested that the Chinese startup DeepSeek is making progress in many developing countries, potentially narrowing the gap in AI adoption between these countries and advanced economies, ABC News reported.

As of the quarter ending last December, the global adoption rate of generative AI tools was 16.3% of the world's population, up 1.2 ppts QoQ, the report said. The gap in AI adoption between developed and developing countries is widening, with the former adopting at nearly twice the rate of the latter.

Countries that have made early and sustained investments in digital infrastructure and AI, such as the UAE, Singapore, France, and Spain, led in user share. However, DeepSeek is promoting broader AI adoption in the developing world through its free and open-source models.
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US stocks jumbled on Thursday, as the market kept tabs on international developments. The DJIA opened lower but trended up. At close, it jumped up 270 points or 0.6%, at 49,266, recovering some of Wednesday's losses. The Nasdaq finished down 104 points or 0.4%, at 23,480. The S&P 500 inched up less than 1 point, closing at 6,921.

Alphabet (GOOG.US) defied the market trend, peaking at US$330.54 and closing up 1.1% at US$326.01, notching a record closing high. Its market cap approached US$4 trillion, toppling Apple to become the second highest in the US stock market.

Major tech stocks descended broadly, with Nvidia (NVDA.US) down 2.2%, Intel (INTC.US) down 3.6%, and Apple (AAPL.US) and Meta (META.US) down less than 1%.
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The 2026 XPENG Global Product Launch Event was held, after which XPENG-W (09868.HK) Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng spoke with the media, stating that Tesla (TSLA.US) is an excellent company, and both parties can encourage each other and grow together to create better products.

Speaking of Robotaxi, the Chairman mentioned that it still needs a steering wheel and brakes, yet it will become increasingly safe and user-friendly, while also requiring regulation.

During the launch, He revealed that XPeng will commence Robotaxi operations in 2026.
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China intends to give the greenlight to the import of some NVIDIA (NVDA.US) H200 chips as early as the first quarter, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. This indicated that NVIDIA may regain access to the Chinese market.

China is reportedly poised to allow domestic companies to procure H200 chips for specific commercial purposes, sources divulged. However, the H200 chips will be barred from use in military, sensitive government agencies, critical infrastructure, and state-owned enterprises. If these institutions and enterprises still need to purchase the H200 chips, their applications will be reviewed individually.
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Elon Musk recently said in an interview with Moonshots that the current approach to constructing clean rooms in the chip manufacturing industry is incorrect. He promised that Tesla will build its own 2-nanometer process fab.

Tesla will have a 2nm fab where he can eat burgers and smoke a cigar, he noted. Regarding the challenge of preventing hamburger grease and smoke particles from contaminating wafers, Musk proposed his solution, wafer isolation.

He advocated shifting the focus of protection from the entire room to the wafer itself, ensuring that wafers remain in a sealed, isolated state throughout all processing stages.
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Due to severe supply constraints, market expectations for the earnings of Asian AI semiconductor and server supply chain companies will continue to rise this year, Nomura released a research report saying.

The broker believed that, with a relatively cautious capacity expansion plan, TSMC (TSM.US) can fully leverage the strong AI logic semiconductor industry led by Nvidia (NVDA.US) and Broadcom (AVGO.US) to achieve potential growth this year, resulting in a 25-30% revenue increase (in USD terms).

Therefore, Nomura also elevated its target price for TSMC's Taiwan stock from TWD1,855 to TWD2,135, and maintained the valuation basis at 25x the projected 2026 EPS, with rating reiterated at Buy.
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Nvidia (NVDA.US) unveiled a new Rubin platform and several innovative AI technologies at CES2026, Citi wrote in its research report.

With these unveils, Nvidia aims to further enhance AI performance and efficiency. Particularly, the new Rubin platform, compared to its previous generation, will have a training speed 3.5 times faster, inference capabilities 5 times more efficient, and computing costs 90% less. It will be first deployed by cloud service giants like AWS and Google Cloud in 2H26.

Citi has kept a Buy rating on Nvidia, with a target price of USD270.
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In December 2025, China's retail sales of passenger new energy vehicles (NEVs) numbered 1.387 million units, representing a YoY growth of 7% and a MoM increase of 5%, preliminary statistics released by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) showed. The aggregate retail sales of passenger NEVs for 2025 amounted to 12.859 million units, marking an 18% YoY hike.

Last month, the retail sales of passenger NEVs of China were 2.296 million units, a YoY decrease of 13% but a MoM increase of 3%, with the total retail sales for 2025 reaching 23.779 million units, reflecting a 4% YoY rise.
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