The announcement made by GBA AI COMP (01396) on July 21st captured significant market attention. The company's subsidiary, Shenzhen Hongrui, entered into two financial leasing agreements with SPDB Financial Leasing, securing a total financing amount of approximately RMB 1.185 billion. The latest tranche, about RMB 790 million, features a notably long lease term of 62 months. While on the surface this appears as a standard financing arrangement, the underlying signals are far more telling than the numbers themselves. In the fiercely competitive arena of AI computing infrastructure, a company's accelerating momentum is being validated with substantial capital investment.
The announcement explicitly stated that this disclosure was mandated as the transaction size triggered the reportable threshold under Hong Kong's listing rules, and it does not represent the full scale of the group's IT equipment procurement activities. If listed company announcements are seen as the visible tip of the iceberg, the procurement and delivery volumes beneath the surface represent the true, powerful undercurrent. The mandatory compliance-driven disclosure (required due to the transaction's scale) precisely indicates that market scrutiny of the company's business scale is intensifying rapidly. Simultaneously, the company aims to ensure external observers are not misled by a single disclosure threshold.
The most critical aspect of the announcement is the significant leap in delivery pace. An earlier announcement this month revealed that as of June 30th, the group had newly fulfilled AI computing cloud service orders exceeding RMB 2 billion. Remarkably, from July 1st to 21st, within a mere 20 days, over RMB 2 billion worth of additional orders completed equipment procurement, entering the final countdown to delivery. This indicates that the progress made in the first 20 days of July nearly matched the actual delivery volume for the entire first half of the year.
The deeper mechanism lies in the financing loop. This transaction employs a sale-and-leaseback structure: Shenzhen Hongrui sells already operational equipment to SPDB and leases it back, keeping the equipment in its possession without disrupting computing services. At the lease term's end, the equipment is repurchased for a nominal RMB 1, effectively retaining ownership. The financing proceeds are then used to procure new equipment, creating a virtuous cycle of "procurement-deployment-financing-re-procurement." The key is "activating" assets that have already generated value to fuel the next phase of expansion—a hallmark of the financial strategy employed by mature infrastructure operators.
The accelerated delivery pace is the result of a powerful convergence of three forces: clients, supply chain, and capital. On the client side, the depth is substantial. Newly signed contracts in the first half reached RMB 15 billion, with the orders involved in this single leasing deal amounting to RMB 2 billion. Diverse clients and solid orders underpin the sustainability of deliveries, suggesting a shift from "sprint-mode" to "business-as-usual" high turnover.
Supply chain resilience is another critical factor. Amidst a global shortage of core AI computing hardware, securing supply itself is a scarce resource. The initial cost of the equipment involved in this deal is approximately RMB 1.5 billion, all of which has been physically received and is operational. The ability to consistently execute large-scale procurement in a seller's market demonstrates formidable supply chain management capabilities.
The long-term perspective of capital is the third pillar. SPDB Financial Leasing, in which Shanghai Pudong Development Bank holds approximately 69.56%, carries an AAA credit rating. Opting for an exceptionally long 62-month lease term signifies a willingness to bet on the AI computing market across a technology cycle exceeding five years, rather than seeking short-term arbitrage. SPDB is not an isolated case—from the equity investment led by Shenzhen's state-owned capital to the long-term debt financing from AAA-rated financial institutions, capital at different tiers is converging towards the same direction. This collectively sketches a consensus: AI computing infrastructure is worthy of a "long-term capital" heavy allocation.
As of the announcement date, GBA AI COMP has delivered over RMB 2 billion from its first-half new contracts of RMB 15 billion (with cumulative order value exceeding RMB 30 billion). An additional over RMB 2 billion worth of equipment has completed procurement and is poised for imminent delivery. With a robust order backlog, the delivery cadence continues to accelerate. In the current global landscape of tight AI computing supply and surging demand, the entity that can most swiftly convert orders into operational computing assets will seize the initiative. Speed is becoming the core competitive moat. And the choice of capital serves as the strongest endorsement of this very speed.