Another Track Explodes! Cloud Service Providers Raise Prices—Who Benefits Most? (With High-Performing Stocks)

As AI applications become more widespread and OpenClaw gains popularity, 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 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 explosive global demand for AI and rising supply chain costs, the procurement costs for core industry hardware have significantly increased. After careful evaluation, Alibaba Cloud has decided to adjust 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 a notice that from April 18, prices for AI computing power, storage, and other products will be adjusted, with AI computing power services increasing by approximately 5% to 30%, and parallel file storage increasing by about 30%.

Earlier this month, Tencent Cloud preemptively adjusted some model prices, raising prices for the HunYuan series models starting March 13, with some core products seeing increases of up to 400%. The collective actions of these three leading cloud providers 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.

Data from the AI model aggregation platform OpenRouter shows that from February 9 to 15, the weekly call volume for Chinese large models reached 4.12 trillion tokens, surpassing the US models’ 2.94 trillion tokens for the first time.

Following that, from February 16 to 22, the weekly call volume for Chinese large models further surged to 5.16 trillion tokens, a 127% increase over three weeks, while US model call volume dropped to 2.7 trillion tokens. This marks a substantial breakthrough in the influence of domestic large models within the global developer ecosystem.

Traffic growth for domestic models exhibits a “clustered” explosion pattern. OpenRouter data shows 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 recent application rankings, these two models also ranked in the top two. According to recent performance reports, the M2 series’ daily token consumption increased by over six times from December 2025 to February 2026.

Guojin Securities’ research report predicts that 2026 will be a critical year for China’s computing power demand to shift from “cloud training” to a dual-driven model of “training + inference,” with the gap rapidly expanding under the influence of more modalities and broader scenarios. Consumer traffic will explode in native scenarios like AI dramas and programming, combined with the buildup 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, with stocks like Meiliyun, Yunsai Zhiliang, Data Port, and Aoruid hitting the daily limit. Stocks such as 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 released their 2025 performance forecasts. Among them, 20 stocks are expected to see growth, with 7 projected to turn losses into profits, 8 showing year-over-year profit increases, and 5 reducing losses.

The top three industry leaders in growth are New Easy盛, Runze Technology, and Zhongji Xuchuang. New Easy盛’s earnings forecast indicates a net profit attributable to the parent company of 9.4 to 9.9 billion yuan, up 231.24% to 248.86% year-over-year. The company states that sustained growth in computing power investments and rapid demand for high-speed products have led to a substantial increase in sales revenue and net profit 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%, 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 a scale of 4.5 billion yuan, making it one of the first data center REITs nationwide and the first on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The company’s non-recurring net profit 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 seen increased financing. Since March, eight stocks have had net financing inflows exceeding 100 million yuan, with Tuo Wei Information, Kehua Data, and New Easy盛 leading at 580 million, 301 million, and 256 million yuan respectively.

(Source: Data Treasure)