AI Chip Boom: Hygon's Surging Profits and Samsung's 8x Profit Surge Signal Global Shift to Domestic Compute Power

Explosive Performance in the AI Chip Industrial Chain and Accelerated Domestic Compute Substitution: Hygon Information, Samsung, and Others Validate the Dividend of Technological Self-Reliance

The global semiconductor industry is undergoing a quiet yet profound paradigm shift—the primary growth engine has pivoted from consumer electronics cycles to the AI infrastructure investment wave, while geopolitical variables are reshaping capital expenditure logic and technological evolution paths with unprecedented intensity. In Q1 2024, Hygon Information’s net profit surged 35.8% year-on-year (quarterly), with full-year guidance indicating a 31.8% increase; Samsung Electronics’ operating profit for the same period is projected to soar eightfold year-on-year; China increased its gold reserves for the 17th consecutive month, adding 160,000 troy ounces (≈4.98 metric tons) in March; EVE Energy announced plans to build a 50 GWh energy storage battery mega-facility… Though seemingly disparate, these signals collectively reflect a single underlying trend: high-certainty advanced manufacturing capability and strategic resource autonomy have become core pillars enabling emerging markets to withstand systemic risks and reconstruct global value chains.

I. Structural Demand Surge: AI Server Chips Emerge as the New Global Capex Anchor

Hygon Information’s Q1 results significantly exceeded market expectations—not driven by a recovery in the traditional CPU market, but by large-scale deployment of its self-developed AI server chips featuring DCUs (Deep Computing Units) across domestic intelligent computing centers. According to its financial disclosures, its “DeepCompute-1” chip and subsequent iterations have achieved over 65% penetration in financial, telecom, and government cloud applications, with order visibility extending 18 months. This confirms that domestic AI chips have moved beyond the “functional” stage into the critical inflection point of “highly usable—and indispensable.” Crucially, Hygon maintains a robust gross margin of 68.2%, markedly above the industry average—evidence that high technical barriers and customized service capabilities constitute a substantive moat.

Samsung Electronics’ earnings explosion carries even broader global benchmark significance. Its Q1 operating profit jumped eightfold—not due to a rebound in memory chip prices, but because shipments of AI accelerators (e.g., HBM3 memory, custom AI ASICs) surged 320% year-on-year, accounting for over 41% of its total semiconductor revenue for the first time. TSMC’s latest capital expenditure guidance further raises its advanced packaging (CoWoS) capacity expansion plan by 25%, directly supporting heterogeneous integration needs of NVIDIA, AMD, and leading Chinese AI chip firms. The data point unequivocally to one reality: the global compute arms race has shifted decisively from “buying GPUs” to “designing chips + building ecosystems”—with server-grade AI chips and their supporting ecosystem (HBM, CXL interconnects, advanced packaging) now commanding absolute priority in capex allocation. According to TrendForce, global AI server shipments will reach 1.4 million units in 2024—a 45% year-on-year increase—with Chinese vendors capturing 38% of the market, accelerating upstream chip supply chain localization.

II. Dual-Track Progress Under Geopolitical Stress Testing: Strategic Coupling of Technological Autonomy and Resource Security

Escalating Middle East tensions constitute a rigorous “stress test.” Risks of Strait of Hormuz blockades, attacks on Saudi petrochemical facilities, and the IEA’s “Black April” warning—not only push up near-term inflation (as Williams explicitly noted, Middle East conflict will lift overall inflation), but also expose deep vulnerabilities in global supply chains. Against this backdrop, China’s March gold reserve increase of 160,000 troy ounces—its 17th consecutive monthly addition—brings cumulative purchases since 2022 to over 700 metric tons, underscoring a prudent hedge against long-term fiat currency credibility risk. Yet this move is far from an isolated financial maneuver—it forms a strategic coupling with hard-tech investments: gold reserves serve as the “shield,” ensuring macroeconomic stability; AI chips and energy storage batteries represent the “spear,” securing developmental initiative.

EVE Energy’s 50 GWh energy storage base carries profound symbolic weight. Beyond meeting the essential demand for solar-plus-storage integration, the facility is deeply aligned with green power consumption requirements of domestic AI data centers—where next-generation liquid-cooled intelligent computing centers demand PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) below 1.15, creating rigid requirements for localized, high-response-speed energy storage for peak shaving. As Hygon’s chips perform high-speed computation within servers, EVE’s batteries supply stable green power. This “compute–energy” closed loop embodies China’s new infrastructure logic for mitigating geopolitical risk: not relying on any single external energy corridor, but instead achieving internal system circulation and enhanced resilience through autonomously controlled hard-tech capabilities. This dual-track approach is rewriting valuation paradigms for emerging markets—investors no longer focus solely on P/E or P/S ratios, but increasingly assess hard metrics such as “technological self-reliance rate,” “domestic localization rate of critical materials,” and “energy self-sufficiency rate.”

III. Global Capital Cycle Reset: A Paradigm Shift in Hard-Tech Valuation Logic

Traditional semiconductor cycle theory emphasizes supply-demand mismatches in the “silicon cycle.” Today’s AI chip–driven capex, however, exhibits pronounced structural characteristics. In the U.S., non-defense capital goods orders (excluding aircraft) rose 0.6% month-on-month in February (beating expectations), with computer and peripheral equipment orders surging 12.3%—a clear sign of accelerating enterprise-level AI infrastructure investment. Though the Fed maintains a “wait-and-see” stance, Williams emphasized that “monetary policy is in a favorable position and can be adjusted at any time,” signaling that if inflation remains persistently elevated due to geopolitical shocks, the hiking cycle may not yet be over—a headwind for highly valued growth stocks, yet supportive for hard-tech leaders backed by real orders, solid cash flow, and genuine substitution logic.

Capital markets are rapidly recalibrating: Hygon’s 31.8% full-year net profit growth stands out uniquely among A-share semiconductor peers; its valuation premium reflects market recognition of its status as a “first-tier domestic AI chip player.” Samsung’s explosive growth reinforces a global consensus: AI compute represents the most certain infrastructure investment theme over the next decade, endowing its entire value chain with strong counter-cyclical properties. More profoundly, as China achieves clustered breakthroughs across AI chips, advanced packaging, HBM, and energy storage batteries, the global semiconductor capex center is shifting—from “chasing Moore’s Law” toward “building heterogeneous computing ecosystems.” Investors must therefore understand: hard-tech valuations are no longer defined solely by process node advancement, but jointly determined by system-level integration capability, depth of real-world deployment, and geopolitical risk-hedging value.

IV. Conclusion: Forging Certainty Amid Uncertainty

The U.S. assertion that the Iran war “will soon end,” juxtaposed with the IEA’s “Black April” warning, aptly encapsulates our era: surface-level conflict may ease, but structural rivalry is irreversible. Hygon’s performance, Samsung’s surge, China’s gold accumulation, and EVE’s energy storage strategy collectively chart a clear path: in this era of global order reconstruction, true certainty springs from endogenous technological capability and resource control. As AI chips become the “heart” of new-quality productive forces, and gold reserves and energy storage batteries form the “ballast stones” of national balance sheets, China’s hard-tech industry is advancing from “filling capability gaps” to “forging competitive advantages”—and in the process, writing an entirely new valuation logic for emerging markets within the global semiconductor capital cycle. This silent revolution will resonate far beyond the chip itself.