China’s AI concept stocks surge on ‘AI+ manufacturing’ and Meta–Manus buzz

This snapshot of China’s equity markets shows how quickly capital is rotating from generic “big model” narratives into concrete AI application and industrial stories. Zhite New Material’s outsized move is driven less by its legacy aluminum formwork business and more by exposure to an AI‑for‑materials collaboration with the University of Science and Technology of China, framed around building an AI for Science platform and joint “smart materials” lab. ([21jingji.com](https://www.21jingji.com/article/20260111/herald/d5132f55d58b7596788f95b4467b0ff6.html))

Layered on top is Beijing’s new “AI+ manufacturing” action plan, which explicitly calls for 3–5 general models deeply embedded in industry, 100 high‑quality industrial datasets and 500 benchmark use cases. That is a playbook to push AI from internet‑style applications into factories, supply chains and equipment, where automation and simulation can compound productivity—and, eventually, feed back into more powerful models. ([21jingji.com](https://www.21jingji.com/article/20260111/herald/d5132f55d58b7596788f95b4467b0ff6.html))

For the AGI race, this suggests China’s contribution may lean more toward system‑level engineering and vertical integration than frontier model size per se. If AI‑accelerated materials, manufacturing and energy systems mature faster in this environment, they could indirectly speed up global AGI work by making compute, robotics and advanced components cheaper and more abundant.