From "devouring" to "benefiting," Chinese software is expected to enjoy "lobster meat"!
HSBC Qianhai Securities pointed out that AI Agent is becoming the first blockbuster AI application, with OpenClaw surpassing 299,000 stars on GitHub since its release, and the token consumption significantly increasing. Chinese models such as KNOWLEDGE ATLAS GLM5 are seizing market share in the token market due to cost advantages, and the strong growth in token usage will enhance the demand for AI software infrastructure
AI Agents Transitioning from "Chat" to "Execution": Amplifying Token Consumption
HSBC Qianhai Securities believes that as foundational models improve their capabilities in productivity tasks, AI Agents are becoming the "first blockbuster AI application." OpenClaw is a representative case, capable of automatically completing tasks such as software installation, script execution, file organization, and web monitoring.
The popularity and usage are rising in tandem. HSBC Qianhai Securities disclosed that since its launch in November 2025, OpenClaw has surpassed 299,000 stars on GitHub, exceeding well-known open-source projects like Linux and React.
More critically, the consumption structure is changing: according to Anthropic data, the Token consumption of AI Agents can be up to 15 times higher than that of chat interactions, making Tokens a "hard metric" for measuring the penetration of AI applications.
Data from OpenRouter reinforces this trend. HSBC Qianhai Securities pointed out that, driven by individual users and enterprises actively deploying multi-agent systems like OpenClaw, the weekly Token call volume on the OpenRouter platform has rapidly increased since early 2026, reaching 14.8 trillion in the week of March 2.
Chinese Models Gaining Market Share: Cost Advantages Amplifying Infrastructure and IDC Resilience
HSBC Qianhai Securities noted that since February 2026, Chinese models such as KNOWLEDGE ATLAS GLM5, Minimax M2.5, and Kimi K2.5 have been continuously capturing Token market share from American large models due to their performance and cost-effectiveness.
According to OpenRouter data, in the week of February 9, the Token weekly call volume of Chinese models among the top 9 models on OpenRouter exceeded that of American models for the first time.
The pricing system is also driving penetration. The mainstream AI programming service subscription packages organized by HSBC Qianhai Securities show that under similar usage limits, the monthly subscription pricing of Chinese vendors is about 20% to 30% of that of overseas vendors, making cost efficiency an important variable driving Token migration.
HSBC Qianhai Securities predicts that the strong growth in Token call volume will increase the demand for AI software infrastructure, with hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) and software-defined storage (SDS) likely to encounter structural opportunities; at the same time, the growth in computing demand brought about by the popularization of AI Agents is expected to drive order growth for domestic IDC suppliers.
Shenwan Hongyuan Research pointed out that OpenClaw is positioned as a personal AI assistant, capable of integrating various communication channels such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Feishu, and managing conversations, tools, events, and skills through a local Gateway, reflecting that Agents are moving towards an "executable" product form From an architectural perspective, OpenClaw uses a local WebSocket Gateway for authentication, orchestration, configuration management, and log processing. Applications and devices connect as nodes and expose command execution, message sending and receiving, and device capabilities to the Agent
