In the ongoing wave of technological advancement, the technology sector on August 13, 2025, once again became the market focus. Multiple fields are showing strong development momentum, bringing numerous surprises and opportunities for investors and technology enthusiasts.
On that day, the A-share technology sector saw a pleasing increase. As of 11:28 AM, the communication equipment index, which includes leading companies in optical modules and AI computing power, rose by 4.66%. Among them, Guangku Technology increased by 20%, NewEase surged over 10%, and Zhongji Xuchuang rose over 8%. This upward trend is not coincidental and is backed by multiple key factors.
NVIDIA announced the recovery of H20 sales, injecting a boost into computing power supply. This move has prompted domestic internet giants to accelerate their AI infrastructure layout in the second half of 2025. The expansion of AI infrastructure primarily drives the demand for upstream optical modules. As an essential component of the communication industry, the demand for optical modules is expected to continue rising with the gradual market acceptance of large AI business models and the subsequent commercialization efforts, thereby enhancing the valuation of the communication sector and driving market rotation. The half-year performance forecasts of some optical module companies have further instilled confidence in the market. The profit growth rate of communication equipment index constituents such as NewEase, Guangxun Technology, and Zhongji Xuchuang exceeded 80% in the first half of the year, coupled with previous capacity expansion actions, highlighting the high prosperity of the sector, with prospects for both profit and stock price growth in the future. Additionally, the market buzz about the expected release of Deepseek R2 between August 15 and August 30, although unconfirmed, has successfully ignited market enthusiasm for AI demand, which is the core driving force behind the growth of leading optical module companies.
The semiconductor sector is equally vibrant. As of August 13, 2025, the global semiconductor industry continues its upward trend, with the photolithography machine sector performing exceptionally well. Since Q2 2023, the global semiconductor market has entered an upward cycle. North America has seen a growth rate of 20% driven by AI infrastructure; domestically, benefiting from the recovery of consumer electronics and the transition to general industrial applications (automotive, industrial control), sales growth in the first half of 2025 has rebounded. The capacity utilization rates of wafer fabs are high, with SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor achieving capacity utilization rates of 92.5% and 108.3% respectively in Q2 2025, with gross margins exceeding expectations (20.4% for SMIC and 28% for Hua Hong), confirming the tight supply-demand situation in the industry. In the memory chip sector, DRAM prices continue to rebound, with Micron Technology raising its Q3 2025 performance guidance, expecting gross margins to recover to over 35%; Changjiang Storage’s domestic production line is about to begin trial production, targeting a 15% global market share by 2026.
The activity in the photolithography machine sector is driven by a series of key factors. Domestic technology has made significant breakthroughs, with the delivery of the 500th stepper photolithography machine to Shenghe Jingwei on August 8, supporting GPU/AI chip 3DIC packaging, featuring high resolution (≤1μm) and a large exposure field (600×600mm), achieving a 90% domestic market share. The first PLSR device delivered on August 1 has a line width of <10nm (better than Canon’s 14nm), consumes only 10% of the energy of EUV photolithography machines, and reduces costs by 60%, having passed validation by Changjiang Storage, particularly suitable for mass production of memory chips. In terms of photolithography materials, the price of photoinitiators (TPO) has surged, with a price of 95 yuan/kg on August 11, a monthly increase of nearly 15% and an annual increase of 26.67%. At the same time, breakthroughs in domestic alternatives have been achieved, with the mass production line of KrF photolithography resin by Eight Billion Space breaking the monopoly of Japan’s Shin-Etsu/JSR; Tsinghua University has developed a new type of EUV photolithography resin, promoting the localization of high-end materials. On the policy front, events such as NVIDIA/AMD’s “special supply agreement” and equipment export bans are accelerating the replacement of domestic computing power chips.
In terms of market performance, on August 12, the photolithography machine sector surged, with Cambrian and Shanghai Hejing hitting the daily limit, and Shengke Communication rising over 19%, while photolithography concept stocks like Feikai Materials and Sidike rose over 10%. CPO (Guangku Technology) and AI computing hardware (Shenghong Technology) also reached new highs, with a transaction volume of nearly 1.9 trillion yuan.
From an investment perspective, the current semiconductor cycle is in a phase of “AI-driven + domestic substitution + technological breakthroughs” overlapping three waves. The photolithography machine sector, as a critical bottleneck in the industrial chain, is benefiting in the short term from the sentiment of domestic substitution, while in the medium term, attention should be paid to the progress of technology implementation (such as the mass production yield of Pulin Nano-imprint) and material localization (breakthroughs in photolithography resin). Although the short-term index increase of communication equipment is high, it has not fully reflected the long-term growth potential of the industry, and there remains ample room for future growth; compared to other industries in the technology sector, the valuation of the communication equipment index still has room for improvement.
In the AI field, OpenAI’s reasoning system won a gold medal in the 2025 International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) online competition, ranking first among AI participants and sixth overall, surpassing 98% of human competitors. Baichuan Intelligent released the medical reasoning large model Baichuan – M2 – 32B, surpassing OpenAI’s gpt – oss – 120b and other leading open and closed-source models on the OpenAI HealthBench evaluation set. However, the release of GPT – 5 has sparked controversy, with its performance being criticized as below expectations, and OpenAI facing a trust crisis due to the stark contrast between excessive hype and actual user feedback. In the AI chip trade, NVIDIA and AMD reached an agreement with the U.S. government to pay 15% of their sales to China in AI chips to the U.S. government, while China plans to abandon H20 in favor of supporting domestic AI chips, which will accelerate the development of China’s local AI chip ecosystem.
The vitality and potential exhibited by the technology sector on August 13 indicate that it will continue to be a core focus of the market in the future. Whether it is the close integration of optical modules and AI computing power, the progress of the semiconductor industry in technological breakthroughs and domestic substitution, or the continuous innovation and transformation in the AI field, all lay a solid foundation for the long-term development of the technology sector. Investors and industry practitioners need to continuously monitor industry dynamics and seize this wave of new opportunities in technological development.