Cloud Service Providers Announce Price Increases in Succession; Computing Power Rental Stocks See Widespread Gains

Securities Times Reporter Liu Junling

With the widespread adoption of AI applications and the explosive popularity of OpenClaw, the computing power service market is entering a price increase cycle. Major cloud service providers such as Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and Baidu Smart Cloud have announced successive price hikes for AI computing power and related services.

Cloud Service Providers Announce Price Increases

On March 18, Alibaba Cloud announced on its official website that due to the surge in global AI demand and supply chain price increases, the procurement costs for core industry hardware have risen significantly. After careful evaluation, Alibaba Cloud has decided to adjust the prices for AI computing power, CPFS (Intelligent Computing Edition), and other services starting April 18. The price of computing cards like the PingTouGe ZhenWu 810E will increase by 5% to 34%, and the CPFS (Intelligent Computing Edition) storage product will increase by 30%.

On the same day, Baidu Smart Cloud issued an announcement that from April 18, prices for AI computing power, storage, and other products will be adjusted. AI computing power-related services will increase by approximately 5% to 30%, and parallel file storage will increase by about 30%.

Earlier this month, Tencent Cloud had already preemptively adjusted some model prices. Since March 13, the Mengyuan series models have been increased in price, with some core products seeing a rise of up to 400%. The collective moves by the three major cloud giants mark the beginning of a nationwide price increase trend.

Since the beginning of this year, overseas major cloud service providers have also raised prices for core products. On January 22, Amazon announced a 15% price increase for EC2 instances used for large model training. On January 27, Google Cloud announced price hikes for data transfer services, AI, and computing infrastructure, with increases reaching up to 100%.

Domestic Models’ Token Call Volume Surges

The competitiveness of domestic large models continues to improve, achieving a historic overtaking in global traffic competition.

According to the AI model aggregation platform OpenRouter, China’s large models’ weekly call volume from February 9 to 15 reached 4.12 trillion tokens, surpassing the US models’ 2.94 trillion tokens for the first time. The following week, from February 16 to 22, China’s large models’ weekly call volume further surged to 5.16 trillion tokens, a 127% increase over three weeks, while US models’ call volume fell to 2.7 trillion tokens. This marks a substantial breakthrough in the influence of domestic large models within the global developer ecosystem.

The traffic growth of domestic models shows a “clustered” explosive pattern. Data from OpenRouter indicates that OpenClaw has become an important traffic entry point for domestic large models. As of March 18, Step 3.5 Flash and MiniMax M2.5 had the highest total calls on OpenClaw in the past month, demonstrating strong competitiveness. In the platform’s overall application rankings over the past week, these two models also ranked in the top two. According to recent performance reports, compared to December 2025, the daily token consumption of the M2 series increased by over six times.

Guojin Securities’ research report predicts that 2026 will be a key year for China’s shift from “cloud training” to a dual-driven model of “training + inference,” with the computing power gap rapidly narrowing under the catalysis of more modalities and broader scenarios. Consumer traffic will explode in native scenes such as AI dramas and programming, combined with the accumulation of B-end niche models, jointly driving a significant increase in real-time inference computing power consumption.

Performance Growth of 20 Computing Power Leasing Stocks

On March 18, the A-share computing power leasing sector surged significantly. Stocks such as Meiliyun, Yunsai Zhiliang, Data Port, and Aoruid hit the daily limit, while Guanghua Xinwang, Qingyun Technology-U, and UCloud-W rose by over 10%.

As demand for computing power explodes, the profitability of leasing companies has markedly improved. According to Securities Times Data Treasure, 32 stocks related to computing power leasing have announced their 2025 performance data. Based on annual reports, performance express reports, and performance forecasts (from lower bounds), 20 stocks achieved performance growth, with 7 expected to turn losses into profits, 8 showing year-on-year profit increases, and 5 reducing losses.

Among industry leaders, New Easun, Runze Technology, and Zhongji Xuchuang saw the largest increases. New Easun’s forecast indicates a net profit attributable to the parent of 9.4 to 9.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 231.24% to 248.86%. The company stated that benefiting from continuous growth in computing power investment and rapidly increasing demand for high-speed products, sales revenue and net profit are expected to significantly increase compared to the previous year.

Runze Technology’s forecast shows a net profit attributable to the parent of 5.0 to 5.3 billion yuan, up 179.28% to 196.03% year-on-year, mainly due to non-recurring gains from the successful issuance of public REITs. In August 2025, Southern Runze Technology Data Center REIT was successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange with an issuance scale of 4.5 billion yuan, the first of its kind nationwide and the first data center REIT on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The company’s net profit excluding non-recurring gains increased by 5.71% to 11.33%, driven by the rapid development of the AI industry and ongoing business expansion, with AIDC business achieving leapfrog growth, boosting revenue and profit simultaneously.

From a capital perspective, some leasing stocks have recently received increased financing. Since March, eight stocks have seen net financing inflows exceeding 100 million yuan, led by Tuowei Information, Kehua Data, and New Easun, with 580 million yuan, 301 million yuan, and 256 million yuan respectively.