Zhongyuan Securities: AI drives global fabs to accelerate production expansion, domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers ushered in a period of rapid growth

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Zhongyuan Securities released a research report saying that investment in AI infrastructure continues to accelerate, driving strong growth in the global semiconductor market. Memory and logic chips are the main driving forces driving the growth of the global semiconductor market. AI drives global semiconductor equipment spending to continue to grow rapidly. SEMI expects global semiconductor equipment sales to reach US$165.9 billion in 2026, up 23.2% year on year, and is expected to reach US$229.5 billion in 2028, and storage-related equipment spending is expected to continue to expand at an accelerated pace. Global fabs are expanding production at an accelerated pace, and Samsung and SK Hynix plan to nearly double DRAM production capacity by 2030.

The main views of Zhongyuan Securities are as follows:

AI drives global fabs to accelerate production expansion, and domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers are expected to fully benefit

Investment in AI infrastructure continues to accelerate, driving strong growth in the global semiconductor market. Memory and logic chips are the main drivers of growth in the global semiconductor market. Driven by AI, global semiconductor equipment spending continues to grow rapidly. SEMI expects global semiconductor equipment sales to reach US$165.9 billion in 2026, up 23.2% year on year, and is expected to reach US$229.5 billion in 2028, and storage-related equipment spending is expected to continue to expand at an accelerated pace. Global fabs are expanding production at an accelerated pace, and Samsung and SK Hynix plan to nearly double DRAM production capacity by 2030. According to Counterpoint Research data, Changxin Technology's global DRAM market share gradually increased from 3% in 25Q1 to 8% in 26Q1, Changjiang Storage's global market share gradually increased from 8% in 25Q1 to 13% in 26Q1, and Changxin Technology and Changjiang Storage's market share steadily increased; Omdia expects China's storage market to account for about 51% of the global market in 2026. Currently, the Chinese storage market is still highly dependent on imports. Changxin Technology and Changjiang Storage have huge domestic replacement space, and there is plenty of room for future expansion of domestic production. Semiconductor equipment manufacturers are expected to usher in a golden period of development.

US, Japanese and Dutch manufacturers dominate the global semiconductor equipment market, and domestic manufacturers accelerate development

Chip manufacturing can generally be divided into steps such as silicon wafer production, front-end wafer manufacturing process, and back-end packaging testing process. Semiconductor front-end equipment includes lithography machines, etching machines, film deposition equipment, ion implantation equipment, CMP equipment, cleaning equipment, gluing equipment, heat treatment equipment, measurement testing equipment, etc.; semiconductor back-end equipment includes testing machines, probe stands, thinning machines, scribers, crystallizers, bonding machines, laminators, sorters, etc. Currently, the global semiconductor equipment market is dominated by American, Japanese, and Dutch manufacturers, and mainland China is the world's largest semiconductor equipment market; according to data from Jimei Consulting, the localization rate of installed semiconductor equipment in mainland China increased from less than 10% around 2020 to about 35% in 2025, but the localization rate of measurement and testing equipment, coated imaging equipment, and lithography machines is still very low, which is a key area for autonomous and controllable semiconductor equipment. Currently, overseas export restrictions on advanced semiconductor equipment continue to be increased. Domestic substitution of semiconductor equipment continues to be promoted, domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers are developing at an accelerated pace, and companies with low localization rates or the ability to break through advanced manufacturing processes are expected to fully benefit.

Domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers ushered in new opportunities to go overseas

Judging from the production expansion plans of leading overseas semiconductor equipment manufacturers, production capacity expansion for Applied Materials, Fanlin, Tokyo Electronics, and Kelei is relatively stable. Domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers have entered a stage of accelerated production capacity expansion to prepare production capacity reserves for future domestic replacement and expansion of overseas markets. At present, the overall overseas revenue of domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers is relatively low. Changchuan Technology, Huafeng Measurement and Control, and Tuojing Technology's overseas revenue growth rates in 2025 were 88.58%, 65.23%, and 53.62%, respectively. Zhongke Feizei and Jingzhida achieved rapid growth on a low base, indicating that some domestic equipment manufacturers have already made breakthroughs in overseas markets. Currently, AI is driving strong global demand for semiconductor equipment. The overall expansion of production capacity of leading overseas semiconductor equipment manufacturers is relatively stable, and the equipment delivery cycle has been greatly extended. Domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers have ushered in new opportunities to go overseas. Some manufacturers with high overseas revenue growth are expected to continue to expand in overseas markets, and leading manufacturers with a relatively low share of overseas revenue may make new progress in overseas markets.

Risk warning: International geopolitical conflicts have intensified, the expansion of fab production has fallen short of expectations, the R&D progress of domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers has fallen short of expectations, and the progress of domestic substitution has fallen short of expectations.