China’s semiconductor markets witnessed a significant surge on April 24, 2026, as domestic computing chip stocks rallied on the back of major software breakthroughs and positive industry forecasts. Leading the charge, Hua Hong Semiconductor saw its shares leap by over 13%, while other giants like SMIC and Cambricon posted substantial gains. The momentum was underpinned by the robust performance of the Science and Technology Innovation Board Chip ETF, which has gained nearly 19% over the past fifteen trading sessions, signaling investor confidence in the nation's hardware self-reliance.
The immediate catalyst for this market enthusiasm is the release of DeepSeek-V4, a high-profile open-source large language model. In a strategic move that highlights the shifting technological landscape, DeepSeek’s developers confirmed that the model’s 'Expert Parallelism' (EP) architecture has been successfully verified on both Nvidia’s high-end GPUs and Huawei’s domestic Ascend NPUs. This dual-track verification is a critical milestone, suggesting that Chinese software is becoming increasingly agnostic to hardware origins, thereby insulating the domestic AI industry from Western export restrictions.
Despite the optimism, supply bottlenecks remain a significant hurdle for China’s AI ambitions. High-end computing power continues to be at a premium, with the service throughput of top-tier models currently constrained by available hardware. However, market analysts are looking toward the second half of the year, when Huawei’s Ascend 950 ultra-nodes are expected to hit the market in bulk. This capacity expansion is projected to significantly lower the costs of high-performance AI services, potentially democratizing advanced computing power across the domestic tech ecosystem.
The rally also reflects a broader structural shift within the global supply chain. As overseas chip supplies remain restricted, Chinese manufacturers are seeing marked improvements in both performance and production capacity. Industry experts from Dongxing Securities and Zhongyuan Securities point to a 'triple opportunity' for the sector: the rapid growth of the optical interconnect market, structural shifts toward silicon photonics, and a rising share of domestic components. These factors combined are creating a favorable environment for Chinese firms to achieve 'corner overtaking' in the competitive global semiconductor race.