How to view the rumors of restrictions on optical modules and PCBs? The latest interpretation from securities firms

Recently, news that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to restrict Chinese optical modules, the U.S. side's supply chain excludes Chinese PCBs, and the U.S. International Trade Commission launches a 337 investigation have emerged one after another, causing fluctuations in the AI hardware industrial chain. How to view this series of rumors? Cailian Press conducted a survey and interviewed chief analysts from three leading brokerages, namely CITIC Securities, Guotai Haitong Securities, and China International Capital Corporation.

From the interviews, most of the views are consistent, holding that the coverage of relevant policies is limited and their implementation is still at an early stage. The short-term actual impact may be smaller than the market sentiment implies, and the industrial prosperity and performance support remain intact. In their view, the boundary of overseas policy disturbances is still changing, but the judgment on industrial prosperity has not changed.

How to view the FCC's rumor of restricting optical modules? The probability of implementation is low

Regarding the FCC's planned restriction on Chinese optical modules, Qiu Xiang, Director of the Research Department of CITIC Securities, judged that the probability of implementation in the rumored version is low.

He mentioned that the advantages of Chinese manufacturers come from technology accumulation, large-scale manufacturing and a complete supply chain. The China-U.S. optical communication industrial chain is interdependent, and relevant restrictions will also push up the procurement costs of North American cloud vendors and delay the deployment cycle. At present, Chinese optical component manufacturers are expected to account for about 56% of the global OEM production capacity in 2026, and the United States cannot completely replace China's supply capacity in the short term.

Fang Yi, chief strategy analyst at Guotai Haitong Securities, also believes that the new FCC regulations do not mean a comprehensive ban on the sale of Chinese optical modules. He pointed out that the new FCC 26-50 regulation, which took effect on October 13, restricts logical hardware components produced by enterprises on the Controlled List, applies to the certification of new equipment, and in principle does not retroactively apply to existing authorized equipment.

Public industry estimates show that 7 of the world's top 10 optical module manufacturers are Chinese enterprises, accounting for about 70% of the total shipments of 800G and 1.6T products. North American customers are faced with capacity, certification cycle and cost constraints when switching suppliers on a large scale in the short term.

Chen Hao, a technology hardware analyst at China International Capital Corporation, added from the perspective of the supply chain. In the long run, China's optical module supply chain cannot be separated by simply changing the origin or supplier.

In his view, leading manufacturers have accumulated experience in yield, large-scale delivery and collaborative response of high-speed products after years of customer certification; even if alternative suppliers have production capacity, they still need to pass product verification and complete the capacity ramp-up.

He warned that hasty switching may lead to rising costs and delivery delays, which will affect the construction pace of U.S. data centers.

To be clear: the PCB national defense procurement restriction does not mean commercial decoupling

In terms of PCB, there are rumors in the market that the United States may require its supply chain to exclude Chinese PCB products. All three brokerages judged that this rumor is inconsistent with the scope of application of the current legal documents.

Fang Yi mentioned that the restriction stipulated in Title 10, Section 4873 of the U.S. Code will be implemented on January 1, 2027, applying to qualified PCBs in national defense procurement, with exemption and contract applicable conditions, and it cannot be inferred that the commercial server supply chain will completely exclude Chinese manufacturers.

He cited estimates from public institutions that the global aerospace and defense PCB market is about 1.4 billion U.S. dollars, while the output value of PCBs in Chinese Mainland is about 58 billion U.S. dollars. The direct impact of the national defense ban is expected to account for less than 1% of China's PCB demand.

At the same time, China accounts for about 75% of the global copper clad laminate supply, and its advantages in scale, cost and upstream supporting facilities constitute alternative barriers, so commercial customers still face great constraints when switching suppliers in the short term.

Chen Hao holds a similar view. He pointed out that currently U.S. commercial AI servers, data centers and cloud computing enterprises are not directly required to completely stop purchasing Chinese PCBs; the PCB supply chain is basically concentrated in Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Chinese Mainland and Chinese Taiwan, and the United States does not have a systematic production capacity and technical foundation locally.

Regarding the overall impact of trade disturbances, Qiu Xiang judged that similar incidents usually do not directly damage the current revenue and profits of enterprises, but may continuously suppress valuation; repeated policy expectations will raise the short-term risk premium.

The 337 investigation is still in the case-filing stage, and it is too early to draw a conclusion

The third disturbance comes from the 337 investigation launched by the U.S. International Trade Commission on October 9, numbered 337-TA-1526, involving patent disputes over vertical power supply systems and related components. The investigated enterprises include relevant entities of Luxshare Precision and Industrial FII.

Fang Yi believes that this investigation mainly affects the future commercialization of specific products, and the current performance impact is limited. The case filing does not mean that infringement is established. According to the disclosure of Luxshare Precision, the involved products are still in the customer verification stage and have not been mass-produced, which is expected not to have a major adverse impact on the current operation and current performance.

The interviewees believe that the position of China's industrial chain in the global ecosystem has not changed.

The prosperity of the computing power and AI sector remains at a high level

Putting overseas policy disturbances back to the essence of industrial prosperity, the focus of the comprehensive survey and the research departments of the three brokerages finally falls on orders and performance realization.

Qiu Xiang cited the mid-year report data, showing that in the first half of 2026, the operating revenue of the computer equipment industry increased by 41.9% year-on-year, and the attributable net profit increased by 176.1% year-on-year; the operating revenue of the electronics industry increased by 29.5% year-on-year, and the attributable net profit of communication equipment increased by 82.1% year-on-year.

Fang Yi's judgment is, The demand for AI computing power is extremely prosperous, and the domestic chip industrial chain will maintain a high level of prosperity until 2027. The computing power leasing sector has begun to enter the performance release stage; the order visibility of the electronics industry has extended to 2027.

Chen Hao said that the global artificial intelligence industry will continue to maintain high prosperity in the next two years. The current fundamental situation of strong demand and limited supply in the AI industry has not changed; there is a large gap in domestic capital expenditure compared with North America, and the demand for AI computing power in the domestic market will remain at a high level in the next two years, driving enterprises in the AI chain of the domestic communication electronics industry to benefit.

New energy and overseas expansion are shifting from scale expansion to high-quality development

Qu Haoyuan, a new energy power equipment analyst at China International Capital Corporation, believes that the new energy industry is moving from rapid scale expansion to a stage of high-quality development.

The 15th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development points out that the average annual newly installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic during the 15th Five-Year Plan period may remain above 200GW; power grid and energy storage, as the core links to promote new energy consumption, are expected to continue to grow in demand.

By segment, the main photovoltaic industrial chain is still in the bottom clearing and bottoming stage. However, with the gradual systematization of anti-involution policies and the entry into force of mandatory national standards, corporate profitability is expected to enter an improvement channel with the recovery of demand in 2027; the wind power industrial chain will gradually enter the profit repair stage as the bidding price of onshore wind turbines stabilizes and rises.

Against the background of continuous prosperity of power grid investment during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the performance of power grid equipment enterprises is expected to grow steadily; the energy storage industry is expected to maintain a high level of prosperity, and corporate profitability depends more on the cost of upstream lithium carbonate and the degree of industry competition.

In terms of automobiles, Chang Jing, an auto analyst at China International Capital Corporation, mentioned that the domestic demand for passenger vehicles is under periodic pressure, and sales in 2026 are expected to decline by double digits; based on the low base of this year, the domestic market is expected to achieve a certain recovery in 2027.

Chang Jing pays more attention to the overseas market. It is expected that the total annual passenger vehicle exports will exceed 9 million units, with a year-on-year growth rate of over 50%. Among them, new energy vehicle exports will more than double. Chinese automakers, especially new energy vehicle models, have outstanding global product and cost competitiveness.

She also mentioned that the recent China-EU negotiations on hybrid vehicles have shown a easing trend, and the pressure of trade frictions has eased marginally, but the overall overseas trade policy still has uncertainty.

The profit repair of the lithium battery industrial chain has been confirmed by data. Qiu Xiang cited the mid-year report data, showing that in the first half of 2026, the operating revenue of the lithium battery industrial chain increased by 21.2% year-on-year, and the attributable net profit increased by 45.3% year-on-year, with profit repair spreading to the middle and upper reaches of the industry.

Positive factors at the macro level are accumulating

Huang Wenjing, a macro analyst at China International Capital Corporation, judged that China's economy as a whole maintains resilience this year and can successfully achieve the expected economic growth target.

She mentioned that the GDP grew by 5.0% year-on-year in the first quarter, and the growth rate fell back to 4.3% in the second quarter; with the recent steady growth policies launched one after another, coupled with the resilience of exports and high-tech manufacturing, the year-on-year GDP growth rate in the third and fourth quarters is expected to rebound to some extent.

The differentiation feature is also obvious. External demand continues to outperform domestic demand. In the first three quarters, China's total import and export of goods trade reached 39.94 trillion yuan, up 18.8% year-on-year.

In terms of new and old driving forces, the added value of high-tech industries and fixed asset investment in the first 8 months increased by 14.2% and 5.2% cumulatively year-on-year, significantly faster than the 5.3% and -7.2% of the overall industrial added value and fixed asset investment.

In her view, household consumption has a large room for recovery. With the continuous optimization of real estate policies, the downward shift of the interest rate center, and the fiscal efforts to support the repair of the household sector's balance sheet, residents' consumption capacity and willingness to consume are expected to gradually increase.

The construction of the "Six Networks" is expected to become an important support for investment during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. In terms of the new power grid, grid connection and cross-regional consumption of new energy, inter-regional power supply and demand adjustment, and new loads such as data centers all require the power grid to improve transmission capacity and safety resilience; the growth momentum of the computing power network comes from the demand for artificial intelligence training and reasoning.

From the industrial perspective, artificial intelligence may become one of the most important new increments in the next few years, and the demand for reasoning computing power is expected to continue to increase with the advancement of commercialization.

Fang Yi added that the new infrastructure represented by the "Six Networks" is becoming a mid-term main line that combines steady growth, weak point supplementation and transformation promotion, and the relevant investment scale in 2026 exceeds 7 trillion yuan.

Qiu Xiang supplemented from the perspective of investment implementation rhythm. According to neutral estimates, the total direct investment scale of the Six Networks during the 15th Five-Year Plan period is about 26 trillion yuan, an increase of about 41% compared with the comparable caliber of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, which is expected to form about 53-72 trillion yuan of upstream and downstream related investment.

He judged that there is a time lag from investment implementation to profit confirmation, and 2027-2028 may be the window for orders to be intensively converted into revenue and profits, and power grid equipment, computing power hardware and general equipment are expected to realize performance first.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Cailian Press", author: Lin Jian, published with authorization from 36Kr.