Why OpenClaw is becoming a key catalyst in China's semiconductor sector

OpenClaw, as a leading AI agent, has rapidly gained popularity in China recently. The widespread adoption of AI agents globally represents a significant technological transformation, and this is particularly important forGlobal X China Semiconductor ETF (3191) $Global X China Semiconductor ETF (03191.HK)$ , which holds particular significance.

The key lies in the fundamental difference between AI agents and existing AI chatbots. Chatbots are passive, while AI agents continuously think, plan, and interact with other software, requiring immense computational power. In the age of AI agents, it is expected that the number of tokens consumed per user daily will increase by at least 10 to 20 times compared to the chatbot era. This presents an even greater opportunity for China's semiconductor industry, mainly due to the following reasons:

1. China’s large model cost advantage stands out

In the AI agent era, token pricing has become a crucial economic factor. Currently, Chinese large language models (LLMs) hold a significant price advantage, making them the preferred choice for running AI agents.

In the past, users prioritized performance over cost because the average monthly token usage for regular users was relatively low (typically less than one million). One million tokens is sufficient to support writing about 100 emails daily. At this scale, even using premium models like OpenAI, the monthly cost is usually only a few dollars, which is quite affordable for most users.

However, the emergence of AI agents fundamentally changes this situation. These AI agents consume 10 to 20 times more tokens than typical chatbot interactions. In the current high-consumption environment, cost has become a core consideration for both users and developers.

Chinese large models currently exhibit clear competitive advantages in this area; for instance, leading Chinese LLMs such as DeepSeek and Qwen have token pricing approximately 10% of similar U.S. models. As these cost-effective Chinese models gain broader adoption globally, overall demand for China's semiconductor industry shows significant and sustained growth.

Shift towards AI inference chips

AI agents primarily drive demand for 'inference' chips rather than 'training' hardware. Although investors often categorize various AI chips together, there are notable differences in technical requirements between AI training and AI inference.

The AI training phase requires continuous adjustment of hundreds of billions of parameters. Essentially, it is a highly compute-intensive process of repeatedly performing 'numerical matching' until the model meets established standards, thus demanding extremely high computational power and advanced hardware configurations.

In contrast, AI inference involves inputting data into a pre-trained model to generate results. The reliance on 'extreme compute power stacking' during the inference phase is generally lower than that in the training phase.

If the AI agent boom is primarily driven by demand for 'AI training' chips, then regardless of how well China's large language models (LLMs) perform, NVIDIA $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ could capture the largest share of profits in the industry chain. However, the economic logic behind AI inference chips is quite different.

After years of effort and accumulation, China has established relatively strong local competitiveness in the field of inference chips. Although this goal was once considered unattainable in the early stages, persistent efforts have enabled China’s semiconductor industry, especially at the 7nm process node, to enter a relatively stable mass production phase. If this process node remains difficult to overcome, China will fundamentally lack the capacity to seize the massive hardware opportunities brought by the current AI Agent era.

Overall, the rapid rise of AI agents in China, coupled with the continuous improvement of the domestic large language model ecosystem, is gradually becoming an important growth engine driving the development of China’s semiconductor industry.

Industry analysts have long predicted that China’s AI chip sector will experience rapid growth in the coming years. According to estimates by Frost & Sullivan, China's AI chip production is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 32% from 2025 to 2029.

However, with the vigorous development of AI agents in recent years, the above growth forecast may still be conservative.

In the foreseeable future, China’s semiconductor industry is expected to remain one of the most growth-potential sectors globally.

Core ETF component stocks benefiting from the expansion of AI demand in China

The AI agent boom benefitsGlobal X China Semiconductor ETF (3191)$Global X China Semiconductor ETF (03191.HK)$several key holdings in this ETF.

Global X China Semiconductor ETF$Global X China Semiconductor ETF (03191.HK)$SMIC$SMIC (00981.HK)$Hygon Information$Hygon Information Technology (688041.SH)$

For risk disclosures related to the ETF, please visit:Global X China Semiconductor ETF | 3191 | Global X ETFs Hong Kong

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