Recently, global capital markets have been showing their strong confidence in AI cloud services with real financial commitments. This has ignited a fresh wave of explosive growth among Chinese concept stocks, with data center giants leading the charge in this transformative trend.

During evening trading, the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index soared by over 2%, with the majority of popular Chinese concept stocks posting significant gains. Zai Lab saw a rise of more than 11%, 21Vianet jumped over 15%, GDS climbed more than 7%, Kingsoft Cloud and Dingdong Maicai both gained over 4%, Hesai Technology and Alibaba rose over 3%, while NIO and Thunder Software each gained over 2%.

This market rally is fueled by multiple positive developments in the AI cloud services sector: Microsoft's massive $19.4 billion GPU cloud computing deal with Nebius, Oracle's 55% surge in cloud infrastructure revenue with a projected 77% growth for FY2026, and authoritative reports forecasting a 148% growth in China's AI cloud market this year are all contributing to the positive market sentiment.

Capital markets are experiencing an AI-driven infrastructure investment boom.

Robust Performance Growth Brings Data Centers into the Spotlight

As two leading enterprises in China's IDC market, GDS and 21Vianet have demonstrated distinct competitive advantages and development strategies.

GDS stands out with its larger scale, faster expansion, and more diversified asset securitization and financing channels. In the second quarter of 2025, the company added 22,741 square meters of contracted data center space, marking an 8.1% year-over-year (YoY) increase, primarily driven by internet and cloud service providers.

The contracted orders included three hyperscale deals with a total IT capacity exceeding 40MW, sourced from four data centers in core Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei hub cities. By the end of the quarter, the company's total contracted data center space reached 663,959 square meters.

Meanwhile, data center utilization rates climbed steadily. In Q2 2025, GDS added 22,448 square meters of operational space, a 14.1% YoY increase, maintaining consistency with the past five quarters. The company's data center utilization rate continuously improved, reaching 77.5% this quarter.

In terms of resource reserves, GDS holds 900MW of developed-but-idle power-equipped resources in China's first-tier markets and surrounding areas.

Additionally, in Q2, GDS reported net revenue of RMB 2.9003 billion ($404.9 million), a 12.4% YoY increase; adjusted EBITDA reached RMB 1.3718 billion ($191.5 million), up 11.2% YoY.

While 21Vianet's wholesale capacity utilization lags behind GDS, it demonstrates faster growth momentum and maintains stable exclusive cooperation with Microsoft. During the same period, 21Vianet also delivered noteworthy performance.

In Q2 2025, 21Vianet's total revenue grew 22.1% YoY to RMB 2.43 billion; adjusted cash gross profit increased 34.9% YoY to RMB 1.06 billion; adjusted EBITDA rose 27.7% YoY to RMB 732 million.

Its base business, serving as the core growth engine, saw operational capacity increase by 101MW sequentially to reach 674MW; utilized capacity grew by 74MW sequentially to reach 511MW; revenue from this segment surged 112.5% YoY.

Moreover, on September 11, 21Vianet announced a 40MW wholesale order from a leading internet company for its strategic Gu'an IDC park, with phased capacity deliveries to support the customer's core operations. This news directly drove the company's stock price to surge over 14%.

HSBC Research also highlighted in its report that 21Vianet benefits from the growing demand for AI training and inference, with its abundant capacity in Inner Mongolia and low power costs making it a top stock pick among data center enterprises.

Explosive Growth in AI Cloud Service Market Drives Surge in Infrastructure Demand

The rapid advancement of AI technology is reshaping the data center industry landscape. In the medium to long term, artificial intelligence remains the core driver of growth in the data center market, with inference services becoming the primary source of demand.

This type of demand exhibits significant latency sensitivity, necessitating large-scale distributed deployment of computing power facilities in core cities. Considering operational efficiency, clients prefer to build inference computing infrastructure within existing cloud service regions and availability zones, which will continuously drive up demand for data center resources in first-tier cities.

The policy environment also favors industry development. Multiple regions have issued notices regarding computing power inventory assessments, with relevant departments aiming for higher-level strategic planning to prevent blind and redundant construction across regions.

Moreover, according to the "China AI Cloud Market, 1H25" report released by global authority Informa (Omdia), China's AI cloud market reached RMB 22.3 billion in the first half of 2025.

The report states that generative AI (GenAI) has triggered explosive growth in the AI cloud market, projecting a 148% growth in 2025 and reaching RMB 193 billion by 2030.

In terms of market structure, Alibaba Cloud leads with a 35.8% market share, exceeding the combined total of the second to fourth-ranked companies. Volcano Engine accounts for 14.8%, Huawei Cloud 13.1%, Tencent Cloud 7%, and Baidu Cloud 6.1%, with the top five providers collectively controlling over 75% of the market.

Previously, the Goldman Sachs' 2025 Communacopia+ Tech Summit opened in San Francisco on September 8, with the rapid development of AI technology applications becoming a major focus, providing short-term catalysts for the sector.

The upward trend of AI-driven cloud services is clear. In Q2 2025, Chinese cloud service providers generally accelerated revenue growth. According to Q1 FY2026 earnings, Alibaba Cloud reported RMB 33.4 billion in revenue, up 26% YoY - the highest growth rate in three years; Tencent's fintech and business services revenue reached RMB 55.5 billion in Q2 2025, a 10% YoY increase; Baidu's intelligent cloud business growth drove non-online marketing revenue to RMB 10 billion in Q2 2025, up 34% YoY.

The U.S. inflation data meeting expectations also created a favorable environment for tech stock gains. U.S. CPI increased 2.9% YoY in August, while core CPI rose 3.1% YoY, both in line with forecasts.

Global capital is accelerating its flow into AI infrastructure. Microsoft's $19.4 billion GPU cloud computing deal, Oracle's 55% surge in cloud infrastructure revenue, and China's projected 148% growth in the AI cloud market this year all indicate: this is not merely a short-term trend but the beginning of a long-term transformation.

Conclusion

As the "power plants" of the AI era, data centers are having their value rediscovered by the market. The performance growth and stock price rallies of GDS and 21Vianet represent just part of this massive trend.

As AI applications permeate across industries, demand for computing power and data storage will grow exponentially. Companies that have made early strategic deployments and possess scale advantages will continue to reap sustained benefits in this competition.