According to a research report released by China Galaxy Securities Co., Ltd. (ASX: 601881), intelligent computing power has been incorporated into the national-level monitoring and scheduling platform, with resources concentrating in key regions and monitoring coverage expanding, while cross-regional unified scheduling and coordinated operation capabilities continue to improve. The computing power network is not a single government project, but rather an infrastructure construction process guided by policy in which multiple entities participate and invest continuously over the long term. Overall, the expansion of computing clusters and network upgrades bring demand for equipment and supporting facilities, while resource interconnection, scheduling operations and mechanism improvement are the key priorities for the next stage. The report recommends positioning along four main lines: "operational scheduling, optical interconnection, switching and networking, and supporting infrastructure." The main views of China Galaxy Securities Co., Ltd. (ASX: 601881) are as follows.

Policy deployment continues to deepen, and computing power network construction evolves from hub layout to resource coordination

The core idea of the computing power network is to connect multi-source heterogeneous computing power through networks, achieving nationwide "unified discovery, unified scheduling and on-demand use." In terms of policy, the computing power network has been incorporated into the overall deployment of the "six networks," with its spatial layout further expanded from eight hubs and ten clusters to an "8+10+3" pattern, while promoting the construction of a multi-level computing facility system of "hub-region-edge" and a "1+M+N" interconnected node system. The construction focus has also extended from hub and cluster construction to areas that emphasize both "hard investment" and "soft construction," such as computing-power coordination, resource monitoring and scheduling, and market-oriented operations. In response to the spatial mismatch between strong demand in the east and favorable energy and hosting conditions in the central and western regions, the policy emphasizes coordinating the east, central and western regions and promoting the integration of computing power with green electricity. As of the end of July 2026, the intelligent computing scale built in the eight hubs and three computing-power coordination regions accounted for more than 85% of the national total, and about 60% of intelligent computing power had been incorporated into the national-level monitoring and scheduling platform, with resources concentrating in key regions and monitoring coverage expanding, while cross-regional unified scheduling and coordinated operation capabilities continued to improve.

Trillion-yuan investment scale, with multiple entities participating in construction

Investment in the computing power network is mainly led by enterprises, leaving room for private investment, with operators' capital expenditure tilting toward computing power, and cloud vendors, third-party IDCs and energy enterprises participating together. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, new direct investment in computing power network construction is expected to reach 4 trillion yuan, a construction scale comparable to major infrastructure such as new-type power grids and urban underground pipe networks, and it is clearly stated that enterprise investment should dominate while leaving room for private investment. Although operators' overall capital expenditure is contracting, the scale and proportion of computing-related investment continues to rise; for example, China Telecom (ASX: 601881) saw computing power network investment in the first half of 2026 increase by 97% year-on-year, with its proportion rising to 48%. Tencent (ASX: 601881) and GDS Holdings (ASX: 601881) are also increasing investment in data centers and computing centers. From this perspective, the computing power network is not a single government project, but rather an infrastructure construction process guided by policy in which multiple entities participate and invest continuously over the long term.

Hard investment consolidates the foundation of the computing network, while soft construction improves scheduling and operations

The main line of the industry chain is the coordinated construction of computing power, transport capacity, electricity and scheduling, with incremental demand released differently across each segment. In terms of transport capacity, the two-tier low-latency network of 5ms and 20ms between hubs has basically taken shape, but there is still room for improvement in high-quality urban computing access and high-speed transmission; for example, the average coverage rate of 100G OTN is only 15.34%, and all-optical cross-connect and 400G and above transmission are the directions for subsequent upgrades. In terms of computing power, the construction of 10,000-card and 100,000-card clusters and domestic heterogeneous adaptation continues to advance; as of 2025, 42 10,000-card-level intelligent computing clusters had been built, and in 2026 the national 100,000-card domestic cluster "Sugon 8000 (Dengfeng)" was completed. In terms of electricity, computing-power coordination, green electricity direct connection and liquid cooling are being applied at a faster pace, with the PUE of newly built large and super-large computing facilities to be reduced below 1.2 by 2030. In terms of scheduling, the national-level monitoring platform and the "1+M+N" system have been initially established, with 1.45 million PFLOPS of intelligent computing power already included in monitoring and more than 20 scheduling entities onboarded, but unified metering and billing, normalized cross-domain scheduling and market-oriented trading mechanisms still need improvement. Overall, the expansion of computing clusters and network upgrades bring demand for equipment and supporting facilities, while resource interconnection, scheduling operations and mechanism improvement are the key priorities for the next stage.

Investment recommendations

The report recommends positioning along four main lines: "operational scheduling, optical interconnection, switching and networking, and supporting infrastructure." It suggests paying attention to operator-related targets: China Mobile (ASX: 601881), China Unicom (ASX: 601881) and China Telecom (ASX: 601881); optical interconnection-related targets: Zhongji Innolight (ASX: 601881) and Eoptolink Technology (ASX: 601881), among others; switching and networking-related targets: Ruijie Networks (ASX: 601881), among others; and supporting infrastructure-related targets: Runze Technology (ASX: 601881), Runjiang Co., Ltd. (ASX: 601881) and Yakang Co., Ltd. (ASX: 601881), among others.

Risk warnings: The risk that computing power network investment is not implemented as expected; the risk that breakthroughs in key technologies such as domestic chips fall short of expectations, among others.