On January 25, 2026, over one million households in the United States experienced power outages, with outage rates exceeding 10% in Tennessee and Mississippi. On February 22, blizzard warnings were issued across 11 US states. Brett Smiley, the Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, indicated that due to worsening severe weather, approximately 100,000 to 150,000 households in the state were expected to lose power. The systemic risks associated with the aging grid infrastructure in Europe and the United States are intensifying, leading financial institutions to maintain a positive outlook on the commencement of a major global cycle of power infrastructure investment.
A research report from CICC highlighted that the systemic risks from outdated grid facilities in Europe and the US are increasing and reaffirmed a sustained bullish view on the onset of a significant global power investment phase. According to the latest weekly token ranking data from OpenRouter, Chinese models MiniMax, Kimi, Zhipu, and DeepSeek occupied four of the top five spots, indicating a rapid growth in global API calls for domestic large language models. Major Chinese internet companies are accelerating their global expansion. Domestic model providers are forming partnerships with global cloud service providers, with models being deployed on the overseas nodes of these cloud services. This trend is expected to benefit domestic power equipment companies that have a strong presence in overseas markets, possess overseas production capacity, and have established stable collaborations with internet giants.
A CITIC Securities research report noted that upgrades and iterations in AIDC power supply systems are creating new opportunities, with the trend towards overseas grid upgrades being clear. AI power supply systems are evolving from uninterruptible power supply systems to all-DC systems, with continuously rising output voltage levels and an acceleration in the deployment of supporting SST solutions. Increasing power density in server power supplies is driving both volume and price increases for related products, thereby spurring demand for supercapacitors. CITIC Securities is optimistic about the rising market share of domestic server power supply brands. Capacity shortages and solution iterations are creating investment opportunities related to the export of new domestic products like supercapacitors and SST systems, along with their supporting power supply ecosystems.
Concurrently, the growth of AIDC and new energy sectors is also driving demand for upgrades to overseas grid systems. The analysis suggests that overseas markets may potentially replicate the power system upgrade cycle seen in China during its 14th Five-Year Plan period. This upgrade cycle is expected to unfold across three key areas: 1) energy storage, 2) baseload power generation equipment, and 3) grid equipment.
Listed Hong Kong stocks related to the power equipment industry chain include: Oriental Energy (01072), Harbin Electric (01133), Shanghai Electric (02727), Weisheng Holdings (03393), CHONGQING M&E (02722), and IMPRO PRECISION (01286).