China Merchants Securities: The Democratic Party sweeps the pace of AI construction and may slow down, but there is no need to worry about complete suspension in the short term

The Zhitong Finance App learned that China Merchants Securities released a research report saying that last week the industry focused on AI infrastructure, physical intelligence, and media. In the 2026 US midterm elections, the Democratic Party swept through both houses of the Senate and the House of Representatives and won the gubernatorial election in several major data center construction states, raising market concerns about stricter AI infrastructure regulations. On November 4, the Apple research team officially unveiled HALO, an autonomous control system for humanoid robots. AI technology is rapidly penetrating into all aspects of the media field. The scope of application covers fields such as AI comics, AI games, AI publishing, advertising and marketing, and content platforms.

The main views of China Merchants Securities are as follows:

[Topics and Industry Trends] The impact of the Democratic Party's sweep on AI infrastructure. In the 2026 US midterm elections, the Democratic Party swept through both houses of the Senate and the House of Representatives and won the gubernatorial election in several major data center construction states, raising market concerns about stricter AI infrastructure regulations. Some candidates from the Democratic Party advocated suspending approval of new data centers and strengthening electricity cost sharing and environmental requirements, which may push up construction costs and cause delays in project delivery, thereby disrupting upstream computing power demand. However, considering that AI infrastructure has now become an important support for US economic growth, and that the Trump administration continues to push for the expansion of the AI industry, the Democratic Party faces high political and economic resistance to push for a complete cessation of construction at the federal level. It is expected that future regulations will focus more on local approvals, electricity and environmental restrictions. The pace of AI construction may slow down, but there is no need to worry about a complete suspension in the short term.

Apple accelerates the layout and becomes intelligent. On November 4, the Apple research team officially revealed HALO, an autonomous control system for humanoid robots, which trains the robot's movement ability through large-scale simulation environments, and combines visual perception and natural language instructions to achieve autonomous planning and full-body motion control for robots in complex scenarios.

AI media is flourishing more. AI technology is rapidly penetrating into all aspects of the media field. The scope of application covers fields such as AI comics, AI games, AI publishing, advertising and marketing, and content platforms. Among them, AI comics directly participate in content production through video generation technology to reduce production costs and shorten production cycles; AI games are mainly used in code development and art production to promote R&D efficiency improvement and gameplay innovation; and AI publishing covers text creation, editing and processing, intelligent layout, and digital content generation, transforming traditional publishing processes. Overall, AI comics, AI games, and AI publishing have taken the lead in forming relatively clear AI industry application scenarios, and are currently the three directions worth focusing on in the AI media field.

[Important Information] Market stabilization: The 25th session of the 14th National People's Congress Standing Committee held its second plenary session at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on the morning of the 3rd. Chairman Zhao Leji attended. The meeting heard a report on financial work commissioned by the State Council, Pan Gongsheng, Governor of the People's Bank of China. The report introduces the main progress and results of financial work since October 2025, the current economic and financial situation and challenges, and proposes next work considerations: continue to implement a moderately loose monetary policy to create an appropriate monetary and financial environment for continued economic development; further strengthen and improve financial supervision to continuously enhance the quality and efficiency of supervision; enhance the adaptability of financial services to the real economy, accelerate the construction of a multi-level modern financial market system, and serve economic structural transformation and high-quality development; steadily deepen financial reform and high-level opening-up to the outside world to maintain the country's financial security; implement well Monetary policy tools to support the capital market, and consolidate and improve the capital market stabilization mechanism. Maintain the smooth operation of financial markets such as stocks, bonds, and foreign exchange, and maintain the bottom line that systemic financial risks do not occur. Midterm elections: On November 4, local time, the results of the 2026 US midterm elections gradually became clear. Major US media confirmed that the Democratic Party not only regained control of the House of Representatives, but also achieved a breakthrough in the Senate election. What is even more interesting is that the Democratic Party's victory went far beyond traditional swing states and went deep into Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and other red states that have supported the Republican Party for a long time. Some election patterns that have continued for decades have been broken.

[Global stock market performance] The global stock market rose and fell less last week. Among them, optional consumption, daily consumption, and real estate performed well, while the performance of energy, information technology, and industry was average.

Risk warning: Economic data fell short of expectations, policy understanding was incomplete, and overseas policies were tightened beyond expectations.