On May 8, the AI application sector showed strong activity during early trading, influenced by overnight gains in U.S. stocks. By 11:00 a.m., Nvei Software (603636.SH) achieved its second consecutive daily limit-up, while Yinli Media (603598.SH), Berry Genomics (000710.SZ), ST Meike (600337.SH), and *ST Gaoke (600730.SH) also hit the upper trading limit. Cute Smart (300840.SZ) briefly reached a 20% surge, and companies like Bonree Data (688229.SH), Newland Digital (000997.SZ), and Guoz Software (872953.BJ) followed with gains.

Recent developments include Kimi (Moonshot AI) nearing the completion of a new $20 billion funding round, alongside updates on DeepSeek's first external financing. Concurrently, Doubao's recent launch of a paid subscription model signals domestic large language model (LLM) manufacturers entering the commercialization phase.

According to reports, LLM unicorn Kimi is close to finalizing approximately $20 billion in new funding, raising its post-money valuation to over $200 billion (around 1.4 trillion yuan). The round is led by Meituan Longzhu, with participation from China Mobile and CPE, among others. Meituan Longzhu alone invested more than $2 billion. The capital will be used to strengthen Kimi's leading position in model performance, computing resources, and talent incentives.

Notably, Kimi completed three funding rounds in January and February, raising $5 billion, $7 billion, and $7 billion, respectively. Combined with the latest round, the company has raised over $39 billion in less than six months, with its valuation increasing more than fourfold from around $43 billion last November.

Wang Xinyu, a partner at Meituan Longzhu, revealed that following the update to Kimi's K2.5 model, the company's annual recurring revenue exceeded $1 billion in early March and further grew to over $2 billion in April, with both paid subscriptions and API usage accelerating.

Meanwhile, DeepSeek, another leading LLM developer, is also advancing its first external funding round. Reports indicate that Tencent, Alibaba, and the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund are in discussions to invest, with DeepSeek's valuation surging from an initial $100 billion to $450 billion.

In another significant development, ByteDance's LLM Doubao has introduced a paid subscription tier, offering enhanced services beyond the free version. Subscription prices range from 68 yuan to 500 yuan per month, with specific details still under testing.

The LLM industry's reliance on heavy capital investment has become unsustainable. Prior to Doubao, Kimi, ERNIE Bot, and MiniMax had already begun exploring paid commercialization strategies for consumer users. Overseas leaders like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini have adopted subscription models from the outset.

Analysts suggest that Doubao's tiered subscription approach will help major AI firms establish long-term commercialization roadmaps. While it remains uncertain whether other applications like Tongyi Qianwen, DeepSeek, and Yuanbao will follow suit shortly, the market is expected to eventually transition toward subscription-based models.

CICC noted in a recent report that Doubao, as a top-tier chatbot application in China by user count and market share, is aligning with ChatGPT's consumer-focused commercialization efforts. This move marks a shift for domestic LLM manufacturers from prioritizing user growth to exploring revenue generation.

The brokerage added that the pricing tests reflect proactive attempts by local LLM firms to monetize consumer services, potentially accelerating the formation of a closed-loop AI value chain in China and benefiting ecosystem partners in computing and applications.

CITIC Securities highlighted that as AI applications grow more complex, corporate demand for underlying data retrieval, computational resources, security governance, and runtime controls is likely to increase. It recommended focusing on leading infrastructure software providers with data and platform control, as well as security platform companies with capabilities in telemetry, policy enforcement, and control platforms, especially after market corrections.

Huatai Securities expressed optimism about investment opportunities in the AI application sector, emphasizing high-growth, undervalued companies with existing revenue streams based on token consumption or pay-per-result models.

According to East Money Information's concept板块, nearly 200 A-share stocks are associated with AI applications, with a combined market capitalization close to 4 trillion yuan. Companies like Hikvision (002415.SZ), Century Huatong (002602.SZ), Xcreate Data (300857.SZ), and Kingsoft Office (688111.SH) each boast market caps exceeding 100 billion yuan.

Since the start of the year, AI application stocks have shown divergent trends. Xcreate Data, which also benefits from computing power leasing themes, leads with a share price surge of approximately 140%, followed by Guangdong Media (002181.SZ) with a 110% increase. Zhuoyi Information (688258.SH) has nearly doubled, while seven other stocks, including BlueFocus (300058.SZ), Supcon Technology (688777.SH), Lj Technology (834021.BJ), and Bonree Data, have gained over 50% year-to-date.

The AI application sector has warmed significantly over the past week, with over 90% of concept stocks recording price increases. Edianzx (301171.SZ), Zhuoyi Information, Hand Information (300170.SZ), Guangyun Tech (688365.SH), and Yinli Media were among the top performers.

Data from East Money Choice shows that more than 90 AI application stocks saw net financing purchases in the past week. Eleven stocks recorded net buying exceeding 100 million yuan, with BlueFocus attracting 841 million yuan in leveraged funds and Kingsoft Office seeing 197 million yuan. Zhaochi (002429.SZ), iFlytek (002230.SZ), 360 Security (601360.SH), and Dahua Technology (002236.SZ) each had net financing purchases between 130 million and 180 million yuan.