Seventy Semiconductor Stocks Reach Record Highs

Following the May Day holiday, the A-share market has exhibited robust upward momentum. The STAR Market Composite Index reached a historic peak, the ChiNext Index hit its highest level in nearly 11 years, and the Shenzhen Component Index climbed to a more than 5-year high. Concurrently, the number of individual stocks achieving record highs has increased. According to statistics, on May 8th, a total of 156 stocks reached all-time intraday highs, which included 70 semiconductor-related concept stocks, accounting for nearly half of the total.

In terms of year-to-date cumulative gains, Liton Electronics has surged over 500%, Honghe Technology has risen 304%, while Jiuzhou Yigui, Changguang Huaxin, Hengtong Optic-Electric, Goda Acoustics, and Kexiang Shares have all seen gains exceeding 200%. Additionally, more than twenty stocks, including Taijing Technology, Kaiweite, and Juguang Technology, have doubled in value this year. Semiconductor stocks have become the most prominent sector in the global capital markets.

This week, the semiconductor rally continued. Advanced Micro Devices rose 26% this week, hitting a 52-week high on Friday, with its market capitalization surpassing $740 billion. Micron Technology accumulated a gain of nearly 38% this week, breaking through a market cap of $840 billion, adding approximately $230.7 billion in just one week. Intel has surged over 136% in the past month, with its market value increasing by more than $400 billion since April.

The investment thesis for semiconductor stocks has recently undergone a significant shift. Previously, the market believed only accelerated chips like GPUs and ASICs would significantly benefit from the AI era. However, recent earnings reports from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and Arm indicate that demand for CPU chips is also multiplying under the wave of AI Agents. Advanced Micro Devices forecasts that the total addressable market for CPUs will see a compound annual growth rate exceeding 35% in the coming years and has doubled its market size expectation for 2030 from last year's projection of $60 billion to $120 billion.

Wang Zijing of Soochow Securities points out that driven by constraints on advanced process capacity and rising costs, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices have initiated across-the-board price increases of 10% to 15%. This marks a transition for the server CPU market from a "market share competition" phase into a "supply premium" phase, with the global computing infrastructure's focus shifting towards CPUs. Under the combined effect of international giants' capacity bottlenecks and growing domestic computing demand, domestic CPUs are expected to usher in a strategic turning point characterized by simultaneous increases in volume and price.

Beyond CPUs, the memory chip sector is also showing a more positive trend. The latest survey by TrendForce indicates that contract prices for general-purpose DRAM are projected to increase by 58% to 63% quarter-over-quarter in Q2 2026, while NAND Flash contract prices are expected to rise by 70% to 75% quarter-over-quarter.

Looking ahead, Yan Xiaowei of Datong Securities stated that overseas large model manufacturers continue to increase AI capital expenditures, domestic policies explicitly support "AI+" and computing-power coordination, and model iteration alongside industry application demands jointly elevate expectations for computing power. Signals such as CPU shortages, memory price hikes, and PCB full-capacity production provide strong support for the continued prosperity of the AI hardware sector.