During Tencent's financial results media briefing, President Martin Lau revealed that the constrained supply of high-end GPUs in China had led to capital expenditures falling short of initial projections. To address its computational requirements, Tencent has resorted to renting GPUs and has curtailed external GPU rentals to bolster its internal computing capabilities. Looking ahead, Lau expects Tencent to elevate its capital expenditures in 2026, aiming to secure computing resources essential for model training and inference. This strategic move will also enable Tencent to have surplus computing power that can be rented out or sold externally.

On March 18, executives from Tencent addressed the ongoing surge in memory chip prices, noting that the burgeoning demand for artificial intelligence (AI) has spurred a broad-based recovery in the demand for various key components. This includes Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM), High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), Central Processing Units (CPUs), as well as Solid-State Drives (SSDs) and Mechanical Hard Drives (HDDs). Presently, securing orders for these components necessitates placing requests months, quarters, or even years ahead of time. Suppliers are giving precedence to large-scale, stable customers, such as Tencent Cloud, leaving smaller cloud service providers grappling with challenges in securing a consistent supply chain.

In light of these market dynamics, the industry finds itself with little alternative but to transfer the escalating costs onto the final product prices. Over the last 24 hours, several Chinese cloud service providers have already announced price hikes for their offerings.

JD Cloud has released a statement, pledging to uphold steady prices across all its core products. This means there will be no further price surges or additional fees imposed on services like cloud hosting and AI computing capabilities. Concurrently, the company is set to introduce even more substantial discounts on a variety of products, including databases and middleware. On average, customers can expect reductions exceeding 16%, with some discounts reaching up to 40%.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated at an all-hands employee meeting that customer demand for artificial intelligence is expected to drive Amazon Web Services (AWS) to achieve annualized sales of $600 billion over the next decade, a figure far exceeding the projected total revenue of approximately $130 billion for 2025. Jassy's optimism may stem from the deepening partnership between AWS and OpenAI. OpenAI has committed to investing nearly $140 billion in Amazon's cloud servers over the next eight years. Additionally, the two companies are collaborating to develop new cloud services that will help AWS customers build customized AI agents powered by OpenAI technology to automate business tasks.

Sina Cloud has recently made an official announcement stating that, owing to business restructuring, it will cease operations and terminate all services at 24:00 on September 16, 2026. New user registrations have already been discontinued. From this point forward until September 16, Sina Cloud will suspend the activation of new services and the recharging of Cloud Beans. However, users can still utilize already recharged Cloud Beans. It is strongly advised that current users accomplish business migration, data export, and backup within this timeframe. Once the service is discontinued, all user data will be permanently erased. As China's pioneering PaaS cloud computing platform, Sina Cloud will formally withdraw from the market after nearly 17 years of operation since its inception in 2009.

Tencent Holdings announced that Tencent Cloud has achieved large-scale profitability, thanks to the growth in enterprise AI demand, increased contributions from its market-leading PaaS and SaaS products, and supply chain optimization.

On the afternoon of March 18, the concept of computing power leasing surged again, with Alibaba Cloud leading the rise. Atum Data soared to the daily limit in a straight line, Pingzhi Information sealed the 20cm daily limit, and many stocks such as Qingyun Technology and UCloud quickly followed suit. On the news front, Alibaba Cloud announced on its official website that due to the global surge in AI demand and supply chain price increases, its AI computing power, storage, and other products would see price hikes of up to 34%.

Microsoft, in collaboration with MediaTek and other suppliers, has successfully completed a proof-of-concept for Active Optical Cables (AOC) utilizing Micro LED light sources. This new product combines the advantages of traditional copper interconnects and laser-based optical cables, with commercialization anticipated by 2027. The Micro LED AOC features low power consumption, high system reliability, and long transmission distances. It achieves high integration through the use of monolithic custom CMOS chips, replacing 'narrowband high-speed' with 'broadband low-speed' to enhance transmission rates within standard package sizes for end products. Additionally, Microsoft revealed that it has already deployed Hollow-Core Fibers (HCF) at some Azure sites. Both technologies are being showcased at OFC 2026.

On March 18th, Golden Eagle Fund highlighted that the ongoing expansion of overseas power grids and the construction of computing infrastructure have intensified the 'power shortage' dilemma. This situation has, in turn, sparked bullish expectations for sectors including power grid equipment. The burgeoning demand for artificial intelligence computing power, along with escalating prices in the memory chip market, has firmly established the upward trajectory of the memory industry chain. Furthermore, propelled by domestic energy security strategies and policies, industry chains such as coordinated computing power and electricity management, as well as green power, are also emerging as sectors worthy of close attention.

On March 18, Baidu Intelligent Cloud made an announcement stating that, commencing April 18, it will implement price adjustments for its AI computing power, storage, and a range of other products, with the maximum hike reaching up to 30%.

Recently, the 24th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST '26) convened in Santa Clara, California, USA. The paper “Here, There and Everywhere: The Past, the Present and the Future of Local Storage in Cloud”, a collaborative effort by Alibaba Cloud, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Solidigm, secured the prestigious Best Paper Award. Globally, only two papers were bestowed with this accolade at the conference. Notably, this achievement marks the third time in the past four years that Alibaba Cloud’s storage research has been recognized with this top international academic honor, underscoring China’s sustained leadership in innovation within the cloud storage infrastructure domain.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the “three generations of evolution” in storage architecture, progressing from pure software optimization to software-hardware synergy. It introduces the next-generation hybrid architecture, Latte, which seamlessly integrates the ultra-responsive nature of local storage with the boundless scalability of the cloud. This integration dramatically boosts response speed and resource utilization through intelligent scheduling, efficient caching strategies, and flexible disaster recovery mechanisms.

In today’s landscape, where AI large model inference has emerged as a mainstream workload, the significance of the Latte architecture becomes even more apparent. It facilitates the creation of a high-performance, large-capacity, and cost-effective elastic caching layer, effectively mitigating the bottleneck of GPUs waiting for sluggish data retrieval.

The transition from Espresso to Latte not only signifies a transformation in storage paradigms but also mirrors the broader shift in underlying cloud computing architecture from “resource silos” to “pooled integration.” With this accomplishment, Alibaba Cloud showcases to the industry how to harness the technological benefits of software-hardware collaboration and local-cloud fusion to establish a more robust foundation for cloud-native databases, AI inference, and big data analytics, propelling global storage technology towards a new era of intelligence.

ByteDance's security team has recently rolled out the "OpenClaw Security Regulations and Usage Guidelines" and introduced the ByteClaw tool to its staff. The "Security Regulations" outline five prevalent risks linked to OpenClaw, along with the necessary security protocols and configuration instructions. The team advises employees to give precedence to using compliant tools like ByteClaw, which have undergone thorough security baseline configurations, and to manage them centrally via a cloud platform to mitigate potential threats. Furthermore, the guidelines strictly forbid the installation and utilization of tools similar to OpenClaw in critical production environments and advise against installing them locally on office computers. Should there be a necessity to employ such tools, it is imperative to adhere to the guidelines and complete the compliance settings prior to use.

On March 18, the three primary A-share indices concluded the trading session with a collective upward movement. Notably, the GEM Index experienced a significant surge, climbing over 2%. The Shanghai Composite Index also rose, albeit more modestly, by 0.32%, while the Shenzhen Component Index posted a 1.05% gain. Leading the charge were sectors such as computing hardware, computing power leasing, and the coordinated development of computing and electricity. Across the Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing markets, nearly 3,500 individual stocks witnessed an advance.

On the afternoon of March 18th, the cloud computing sector on the Hong Kong stock market sustained its upward momentum. Notably, Kingsoft Cloud experienced a remarkable surge, with its stock price skyrocketing by over 15%. Other key players in the sector also fared well, with Kingdee International seeing a rise of over 5%, Alibaba-W climbing over 3%, and both Mobvista and Kingsoft Corporation registering gains.

Microsoft is contemplating the initiation of legal action against Amazon and OpenAI concerning a substantial $50 billion deal. It claims that this agreement may infringe upon the exclusive cloud cooperation pact established between Microsoft and OpenAI. The core of the controversy revolves around the question of whether Amazon Web Services is permitted to provide OpenAI's latest commercial offerings. Presently, Amazon and OpenAI are in the process of developing a system designed to bypass this existing agreement, a move that has elicited vehement opposition from Microsoft's top brass. This conflict underscores the growing rift between Microsoft and OpenAI. Should the dispute escalate to formal legal proceedings, it could potentially impede OpenAI's planned Initial Public Offering (IPO), which was initially slated to take place as early as this year. Despite having successfully secured $110 billion in funding last month, OpenAI still faces the necessity of raising additional capital to meet the expenses associated with computational resources.

On March 18, Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares experienced a significant surge in afternoon trading, rebounding nearly 2% after dipping more than 1% in the morning session. Meanwhile, its U.S.-listed shares also climbed over 2% in after-hours trading. On the news front, Alibaba Cloud has announced a price hike of up to 34% for its AI computing power and storage products. This adjustment comes in response to the soaring global demand for AI technologies and escalating supply chain costs.

Unisplendour Corporation stated that the 800G CPO silicon photonics switch it released has achieved mass production and commercial delivery capabilities, and has completed technical validation and deployment applications with internet manufacturers.

On March 18, Alibaba Cloud announced on its official website that due to the surge in global AI demand and rising supply chain costs, it would increase the prices of its AI computing power and storage products by up to 34%. Among them, the price hikes for computing cards such as the T-Head Zhenwu 810E range from 5% to 34%, while the file storage product CPFS (Smart Computing Edition) will see a 30% increase. According to informed sources, the explosive growth in Token usage is also a significant factor behind this price hike. From January to March this year, Alibaba Cloud's MaaS business, Bailian, experienced record-breaking growth, prompting Alibaba Cloud to allocate its scarce AI computing resources towards Token-related services.

On March 18th, Zhongyi Technology announced its successful bid for two significant segments of a project undertaken by a prominent state-owned financial institution. The contracts encompass the procurement of server storage equipment and Huawei Cloud licenses, with the total project value nearing 40 million yuan.

A new report from the Canadian Energy Regulator forecasts a significant increase in electricity generation by 2050, primarily driven by the substantial demand for power from new artificial intelligence data centers. The agency has outlined four supply and demand scenarios for Canada's oil, gas, and electricity markets, including current measures, higher, lower, and net-zero scenarios. In all scenarios, electricity generation is projected to rise substantially, with a 30% increase in the lower-end scenario and a doubling in the higher-end scenario. Wind energy is set to become the main source of new generating capacity.