China Mobile launched the procurement of intelligent computing centers, and these companies are involved in the business of AI servers

China Mobile launched the procurement of new intelligent computing centers from 2024 to 2025. According to the tender announcement, the total procurement scale of this project reached 8,054 units. This project is the largest centralized procurement of artificial intelligence servers in the industry, and according to the annual report, China Mobile will develop steadily in 2023. These listed companies are involved in AI servers.

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China Mobile launched intelligent computing procurement

Recently, China Mobile (600941. SH) has launched the procurement of new intelligent computing centers from 2024 to 2025. According to the tender announcement, the procurement scale of this project reached 8,054 units. The project is divided into two standard packages: Standard Package 1 is 7,994 artificial intelligence servers and ancillary products, and the number of winning bidders is 5 to 7, and Standard Package 2 is 60 white-box switches, and the number of winning bidders is 1. This project is the largest centralized procurement of artificial intelligence servers in the industry.

Previously, China Mobile also released the 2023-2024 new intelligent computing center (test network) centralized procurement project, with a total of 2,454 AI training servers corresponding to 12 standard packages (1,204 units for 1-11 standard packages and 1,250 units for 12 standard packages). The total scale of the two AI servers exceeded 10,000 units.

In addition to China Mobile, China Telecom (601728. SH) and China Unicom have also started the purchase of AI servers, with 4,175 and 2,503 units respectively.

China Mobile has developed steadily

According to the annual report, China Mobile's operating income in 2023 will be 1,009.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%, of which the main business income will be 863.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.3%, higher than the industry average growth. The total number of connections (including mobile phones, wired broadband, IoT cards, home devices, and industrial device connections) reached 3.35 billion, a net increase of 410 million. CHBN (personal market (C), household market (H), government and enterprise market (B), and emerging market (N)) grew in an all-round way, and HBN revenue accounted for 43.2% of the main business income, an increase of 3.4 percentage points year-on-year. The revenue from digital transformation (including new services (mobile cloud disks, etc.) in the personal market, smart home value-added services in the home market, DICT revenue in the government and enterprise market, Internet of Things (IoT), private line revenue, and revenue from emerging markets (excluding international basic business revenue)) reached 253.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.2%, accounting for 29.4% of the main business revenue.

In 2023, China Mobile's personal market revenue will reach 490.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.3%, and the number of mobile customers will be 991 million, a net increase of 15.99 million. Among them, the number of 5G package customers reached 795 million, a net increase of 180 million. The number of equity convergence customers8 reached 330 million, with a net increase of 42.76 million, the number of monthly active customers of mobile cloud disks reached 190 million, a net increase of 23.74 million, ranking second in the industry, the number of customers using 5G new call HD video reached 133 million, a net increase of 41.32 million, of which the number of AI application subscription customers exceeded 3.07 million, and the sales volume of the Dynamic Zone Mango Card reached 11.47 million in the five months since its issuance. Mobile ARPU grew steadily, reaching RMB49.3, up 0.6% year-on-year.

In the first quarter of 2024, China Mobile achieved operating income of 263.7 billion yuan, up 5.2% year-on-year, net profit attributable to the parent company of 29.6 billion yuan, up 5.5% year-on-year, and non-net profit attributable to the parent company of 26.1 billion yuan, up 8.4% year-on-year.

As of March 31, 2024, the company had a total of 996 million mobile customers, including 799 million 5G package customers and 488 million 5G network customers, and in the first quarter of 2024, mobile Internet traffic increased by 3.3% year-on-year, mobile Internet DOU reached 14.9GB, and mobile ARPU was 47.9 yuan.

These listed companies are involved in AI servers

Inspur Information (000977. SZ) disclosed that the company has developed the world's highest-density AI server, etc., and the company has grown into the world's top two server suppliers. According to the company, Inspur Information's business covers three key areas of computing, storage and network, and provides a full range of digital solutions including cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and edge computing.

In terms of computing power, in 2023, a new generation of G7 computing power platform will be released, covering 46 new products for cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence and other application scenarios. The latest generation of AI training server NF5688G7 with converged architecture has nearly 7 times higher performance than the previous generation of platform large models, and a new generation of AI server NF5698G7 for generative AI based on the high-speed interconnection of open acceleration module OAM has been released.

FII (601138. SH) said that in 2017, the company launched the world's first AI server with customers. In 2023, the company's AI server factory was successfully selected into the World Economic Forum's latest batch of lighthouse factories, becoming the world's first AI server lighthouse factory, and the number of lighthouse factories built by the company has increased to nine.

In 2023, the company will further deepen its cooperation with major global server brands and domestic and foreign cloud service providers. The company works with customers to develop and mass-produce high-performance AI servers, and provides customers with advanced cooling solutions for data centers, effectively improving the efficiency and sustainability of data center operations. At the same time, the company actively explores the possibility of more applications in the field of AI, deeply participates in the construction of customers' AI factories, and continues to expand its applications in many new fields, and its exploration in cloud games, automotive mobile servers, edge servers and space Internet computing servers is achieving results.

During the reporting period, the company's cloud computing gross profit margin reached 5.08%, an increase of 1.12 percentage points over last year, mainly due to the significant increase in the market share of AI servers, which effectively drove the company's overall cloud computing gross profit margin.

The company said that it will take AI technology as the core driving force and focus on AI product layout, advanced heat dissipation and liquid cooling technology.

In terms of AI servers, the operating income and profit in 2023 will be outstanding. The company has achieved significant growth in the market share of AI servers, which has effectively promoted the improvement of operating income, profit and profitability. The company provides generative AI solutions for the entire industry chain for the world's top cloud service providers, leading the industry forward. The company focuses on GPU modules, substrates and back-end AI server design and system integration in the upstream of the AI industry value chain.

In 2023, the company's AI server shipments will continue to rise, providing design and development services for the introduction of new generation data center products and computing center products for major customers, becoming a new growth engine for the company.

In addition, in 2023, benefiting from the upgrade of data center networks of operators and cloud service providers, the company's communication and mobile network equipment revenue will reach 278.976 billion yuan. The operating income of high-speed switches and routers showed double-digit growth over the same period last year, and the gross profit margin of communication and mobile network equipment was 9.80% during the reporting period, an increase of 0.55 percentage points year-on-year.

In terms of high-speed switches and routers, the mass production and delivery of 100G, 200G, 400G and other high-speed switches have been realized, of which the shipment of 200G and 400G switches has increased significantly, and 800G switches have also entered the NPI stage, which is expected to contribute to operating income in 2024.