Bank of America: By 2030, China's AIDC investment may reach 327 billion USD, with focus on the dual main lines of "power grid + materials".

In its latest AI infrastructure research report, BofA Securities has significantly raised its forecast for capital expenditure on Chinese AI data centers (AIDC) to $327 billion by 2030, systematically outlining structural investment opportunities for traditional sectors such as copper, PCB materials, optical fiber, transformers, and more as they enter the AI value chain. Relevant stocks have received a series of buy ratings.

According to reports, China's AIDC capital expenditure may reach around 2 trillion RMB over the next five years. According to Wind Chasing Trading Desk, BofA expects China's AI capital expenditure to grow from approximately $140 billion in 2026 to $327 billion in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 24%, accounting for about 20% of global AI capital expenditure at that time. Meanwhile, BofA's global team has raised its forecast for global AI capital expenditure in 2030 to more than $1.7 trillion, a substantial leap from $260 billion in 2025.

The report centers around two main lines. The first is AI materials, covering five major categories: copper, PCB materials (copper foil and glass fiber), optical fiber, magnetic materials/tungsten/uranium. Several high-end subcategories are facing structural supply shortages, with strong upward momentum for prices. The second is AI power supply, including five major opportunities: transformers, gas turbines, diesel engines, energy storage systems, and power supply systems. With advantages in power costs, grid conditions, and equipment industry chain, China is expected to deeply benefit from and increase its export share in the global AIDC construction wave.

The core logic of the above assessment is that the AI computing power race is increasingly evolving into a competition of power infrastructure—global data center installed capacity is expected to expand from about 100GW now to nearly 300GW by 2030, with single rack power density rising from traditional servers' 10–15 kW, climbing along Nvidia’s platform roadmap to 100–120 kW now, and potentially breaking 1 MW in next-generation systems, thereby driving upstream materials and power equipment demand into a structurally rising trend.

Power Demand: China Data Center Electricity Consumption Will Reach 318 TWh by 2030

According to International Energy Agency (IEA) data, global data center electricity consumption will approach 500 TWh in 2025, about 1.6% of total global electricity. Based on this, BofA estimates the figure will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 22%, reaching 1,208 TWh (about 3.7% of global electricity) by 2030.

In China, data center installed capacity is expected to expand from 29GW in 2025 to 77GW in 2030, with electricity consumption rising from 121 TWh to 318 TWh, accounting for about 2.5% of national electricity. BofA also notes that, due to chip restrictions causing some internet companies to shift computing layouts to Southeast Asia, actual domestic data center power consumption in China may be lower than the true growth rate of AI demand.

Three factors driving the surge in power demand are: rapid growth of AIDC workloads; increased single-chip power consumption as GPUs replace CPUs; and system-wide power expansion required by rising rack power density from 10–15 kW to 100–120 kW or even higher.

AI Materials: Five Major Categories Facing Structural Supply Tightness

In the copper sector, BofA expects Chinese data center-related copper demand to grow from 341 thousand tons in 2025 to 1,190 thousand tons in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 28%, raising copper's share of total demand in China from 2.1% to 6.4%. The increase mainly comes from data center operations (650 thousand tons), grid expansion (504 thousand tons), and power plant construction (36 thousand tons). Addressing market concerns about "fiber replacing copper," BofA believes copper's position in power transmission, short-range interconnections, and internal server connections is hard to shake, and with global copper supply expected to have a gap of 491–754 thousand tons in 2026–2027, copper price support logic remains solid.

In the PCB materials sector, low-end copper foil capacity is structurally excessive, but AI servers drive an increase in PCB layers and raise high-frequency signal transmission specs, sharply expanding demand for high-end copper foil. High conversion barriers, equipment bottlenecks, and customer certification cycles (usually over a year) mean supply-demand gaps are hard to fill in the short term, and high-end product prices/margins are likely to remain supported.

High-end electronic glass fiber (low Dk/low CTE special yarn) supply has historically been dominated by a few Japanese firms like Nittobo (3110 JP), but after years of R&D, Chinese manufacturers are gradually breaking through. There are currently five qualified domestic suppliers, with Taishan Glass Fiber under CNBM Technology in the lead. BofA gives CNBM Technology a buy rating, forecasting special glass fiber capacity to expand from 24 million meters now to 94 million meters in 2027.

Optical fiber demand is rapidly shifting from traditional telecommunications to AIDC. While overall capacity is adequate, key upstream raw material—preform—has long expansion cycles and high technical barriers, creating structural supply bottlenecks and supporting fiber prices. BofA gives a buy rating to Jiangsu Zhongtian Technology, expecting a 75% compound annual earnings growth rate per share from 2026–2027.

In magnetic materials, tungsten, and uranium, high-performance NdFeB magnets benefit from dual drivers: AIDC liquid cooling systems and humanoid robot demand, remaining structurally tight. Tungsten enters the AI value chain due to expanding PCB high-density drilling demand, and Chinese resource controls keep supply rigid. Uranium is seen as the core strategic resource for scalable, zero-carbon, stable baseload power in the AI computing era. BofA's global commodities team predicts uranium prices will rise 47% and 29% year-on-year in 2026 and 2027, respectively, due to a 2–7% annual structural supply gap and about 4% compound annual demand growth.

AI Power Supply: China Has Unique Competitive Advantages

BofA stresses that China has multiple structural advantages in AI power supply: commercial electricity prices 30–60% lower than US/EU; about 30% effective reserve capacity margin, higher than the US' less than 25% and EU's approximately 15%; transmission/distribution facility average lifespan under 20 years (US/Europe both over 40 years), resulting in greater network stability; and a complete set of 46 UHV transmission channels plus a strong power equipment manufacturing chain. China also announced that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, it will expand nuclear power installed capacity from 62GW at the end of 2025 to about 110GW in 2030.

Opportunity 1: Transformers. BofA predicts that China’s transformer exports will grow 30% year-on-year in 2026, domestic grid investment will grow 12% to about 715 billion RMB. Global transformer shortages will last until at least 2029, with high-voltage transformer delivery times up to three years. China’s complete supply chain effectively fills overseas capacity gaps.

Opportunity 2: Gas turbines. BofA's global industrial team predicts global gas turbine annual orders from 2026–2028 will reach about 120GW, and lead times for new orders are currently 3–6 years, giving Chinese firms a window to compete via price and delivery (as fast as 13 months). Dongfang Electric is the only Chinese company capable of medium/large gas turbine exports; its G50-type 50MW units have completed 10 sales to a Canadian data center client and have been exported to Kazakhstan and Indonesia; management plans to raise export capacity to 23 units by the end of 2027, and 45 units by the end of 2029.

Opportunity 3: Diesel engines. Chinese large-bore diesel engine makers have completed US UL and EPA certifications, taking the lead in entering North America's AIDC backup power market. BofA estimates demand for China’s AIDC backup diesel engines will reach 8,500 units in 2026, with supply tightness expected to ease in 2027 as capacity expands.

Opportunity 4: Energy storage systems. BofA forecasts global BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) new installations to grow at a compound rate of 23% from 2025–2030, AIDC-related BESS at about 27%, with global new AIDC BESS installations reaching 70 GWh by 2030, about 8% of the global total new capacity.

Opportunity 5: Power supply systems. BofA predicts the Chinese AIDC power supply system (UPS+HVDC+SST) market will grow at a compound annual rate of approximately 25% from 2025–2030. Nvidia is actively pushing the supply chain to switch to 800VDC high-voltage DC architectures, responding to the rising rack power density on its hardware roadmap. Large-capacity power supply system ASP (average selling price) is significantly higher than traditional power supply units, and high R&D barriers plus customization create strong competitive moats.

Liquid Cooling: Penetration Rate Jumping from 30% to 70%

Liquid cooling is the fastest-growing segment in the Chinese data center cooling market. As rack power density continues to break past the upper wind-cooling limit (about 40 kW/rack), coupled with increasingly strict domestic energy efficiency regulations, liquid cooling penetration is rapidly rising. Liquid cooling's thermal conduction efficiency is 20–50 times higher than wind cooling, with PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) able to drop to about 1.1.

BofA predicts China’s data center liquid cooling penetration rate will rise from 30% in 2025 to 70% in 2030, with liquid cooling demand expanding from 1.4GW to 9.5GW, a compound annual growth rate of 47%. The overall data center cooling market will grow from 2025 to 2030 to 70 billion RMB, with an overall compound growth rate of 36%. Currently, cold plate liquid cooling accounts for over 90% market share; immersion liquid cooling’s share is expected to rise from about 5% in 2025 to about 17% in 2030, with a market size of 16 billion RMB.

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