Bank of America: China's AI spending is expected to reach 700 billion yuan this year, and the world will reach 800 billion US dollars by 2030

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on September 9, Zhao Yanlin, co-head of the China Research Department of Bank of America Global Research Department and head of basic materials and energy in the Asia-Pacific region, said at the seminar that AI capital expenditure will drive development in upstream resources, electricity, cooling, and intelligent manufacturing. It is also estimated that China's AI capital expenditure will reach 700 billion yuan this year. By 2030, global AI capital expenditure will reach 800 billion US dollars.

Vivek Arya, an American semiconductor and semiconductor capital equipment analyst at Bank of America's Global Research Division, pointed out that global AI infrastructure spending will exceed 400 billion US dollars this year, and the top mega-tech companies will spend more than 1 billion US dollars per day. The return on such investment needs to balance “offensive” new revenue sources with the protection of “defensive” competitive barriers, and in the context of potential disruptions caused by companies such as OpenAI, large-scale technology companies will continue to increase their investment.

Wu Yi, co-head of the China Research Department of Bank of America Global Research Division, chief Chinese strategist, and chief financial analyst in the Asia Pacific region, believes that the Asia-Pacific region is in a very favorable position to benefit and contribute to the global artificial intelligence economy. Moreover, artificial intelligence is transformative and will change people's views on the country's long-term economic competitiveness

Wu Yi said that in traditional economic theory, the core driving role of the number of workers in GDP growth may be weakened, and countries with high artificial intelligence preparations such as China and South Korea may have long-term GDP growth higher than expected, and it will push stock market valuations to be scrutinized.

She added that emerging Asian economies that rely on cheap labor to attract foreign investment need to rethink their value proposition in the AI era to avoid being eliminated.

In terms of industry opportunities, Wu Yi predicts that in the next 5 years, the compound annual growth rate of Chinese artificial intelligence chips, generative artificial intelligence software, Taiwanese artificial intelligence foundry, and South Korea's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) industry will reach 20% to 50% in the next 5 years. Meanwhile, growth in industries such as information technology services in India and semiconductor equipment in China is likely to slow down.