The Zhitong Finance App learned that CITIC Construction Investment released a research report saying that China's new materials industry has gone from following to breaking through to leading in some fields. The process of cutting-edge materials research and development and industrialization has accelerated, and the market size is growing rapidly. The AI industry is developing rapidly. Under industrial trends such as high power and high voltage, the field of new metal materials has ushered in historic development opportunities: the lead in soft magnetic materials has been transformed into an advantage in the field of AI chip inductors. Ultrafine nano-nickel powder is already leading the world in ultra-high capacity MLCC core materials, and the high-purity aluminum industry chain has fully benefited from the increase in AI server-side power supply demand; in addition, China's superior resources, such as rare earths, indium, germanium, gallium, etc., are gradually being expanded to the materials sector. Overseas related high-end materials industries are shifting to China, and the advantages of domestic upstream materials are prominent. Domestically produced high-purity indium, indium phosphide, yttrium oxide stabilized zirconia and other fields ushered in historic development opportunities.
CITIC Construction Investment's main views are as follows:
As AI server power increases, demand for AI chip inductors and AI capacitors continues to grow, while industries such as upstream raw materials such as nickel powder, carbonyl iron powder, metal soft magnetic powder (core), heat dissipation materials, high-purity aluminum, aluminum electrode foil, high-purity indium, and indium phosphide are developing rapidly.
Magnetic materials: Soft magnetic materials are the base for electric energy conversion, and material properties directly determine the ceiling of device performance. The root cause of the breakthrough in chip inductors is the drastic increase in AI requirements for power and performance. Inductors made of traditional materials cannot meet demand. Chip inductors made of new magnetic materials have evolved, and upstream magnetic material companies can take the lead in breaking through on the material side. Three major trends in AI chip inductors: single-phase inductors shift to multi-phase inductors, discrete inductors shift to TLVR inductors, horizontal power supply to vertical power supply, etc. In the future, as AI chip shipments increase, chip power increase, and inductance performance upgrade, the AI chip inductor market will rapidly expand. Scale growth rate = chip shipment ratio × power increase factor × single value increase factor. The market size is expected to increase from 2.4 billion in 2025 to over 30 billion in 2028. The advantages of material-device integration enterprises are highlighted.
Ultrafine nano nickel powder: the world's leading segmentation circuit, the core material for high-end MLCC. Trends such as MLCC miniaturization, high capacity, and high frequency require nickel powder to have a significant impact on MLCC performance, such as good sphericity, high vibration density, high conductivity, low electrical mobility, good corrosion resistance and heat resistance to solders, high sintering temperature, and good high-temperature co-firing with ceramic media materials. The 80nm nickel powder that can be mass-produced in China has reached the top level in the world. As demand for computing power grows in the future, demand for ultra-high capacity MLCCs will grow rapidly. Demand for nano nickel powder will become more and more detailed, and the field of nano nickel powder for MLCC will usher in a good investment opportunity.
High-purity aluminum-electrode foil: Server power and voltage inflation, and demand for aluminum capacitors on the power supply side has exploded. The trend of high power and high voltage for AI servers has been determined. Cabinet power is linearly correlated with demand for aluminum electrolytic capacitors, leading to a first round of demand growth. However, the 800V platform's “series demand” itself, under a complete design to fill the energy storage/capacity value, provided a structural expansion of about 4 times, bringing about a second round of growth. Demand for aluminum electrolytic capacitors can be expected to grow in the future. Every link in this industrial chain of high-purity aluminum, electronic optical foil, and electrode foil is expected to greatly benefit.
Indium: Export control resonates with AI computing power and optical communication, and high-purity indium enters a boom cycle. As a by-product associated with zinc smelting, the supply of indium is extremely rigid, and China accounts for more than 70% of global refined indium production. The demand-side ITO target (80%) built a stable basic board, while AI computing power drove the optical module upgrade to 800G/1.6T, driving demand for indium phosphide substrates to increase 4.3 times over three years (CAGR 107%). The supply and demand gap exceeds 70%, corresponding to the increase in demand for high-purity indium from about 31 tons in 2026 to about 153 tons in 2028. The price of indium rose from a high of about 2,500 yuan/kg to 5,700 yuan/kg during the year, an increase of nearly 90%. High-purity indium processing barriers are extremely high. Domestic companies have broken through the 7N-8N ultrapure process, domestic substitution is accelerating, and sector pricing is shifting from theme-driven valuation expansion to order and profit fulfillment verification.
Zirconium: China's nano zirconia ushered in rapid development opportunities. The global supply of zirconium ore is highly concentrated (Iluka, Tronox, and Rio Tinto account for about 60%), and China's export controls on yttrium oxide limit the raw materials of Japan's Tosoh, the rarest element (accounting for about 40% of the world's high-end powders in total) — Tosoh has issued a notice to suspend supply to Editt — Chinese manufacturers are expected to undertake a transfer of about 6,000 tons of production capacity, and the global share has risen from about 25% to more than 40%. Demand-side solid-state batteries (zirconium sand consumption is about 110,000 tons in 2030), AI data centers will spawn SOFC emissions (YSZ demand will increase from 110 tons in 2025 to about 1,000 tons in 2028), electronic ceramics, optical modules, MLCCs, etc.; by compounding the price difference of about 200 times that of yttrium oxide at home and abroad, to open up upstream zirconium oxide and master high-end powder processes, will also benefit from the double dividends of domestic substitution and raw material pattern reconstruction.