Industry report says new economy and AI will become major drivers of investment in China

China News Service, Shanghai, October 20 (Gao Zhimiao) The CF40 (China Finance Forty Forum) Research Annual Report (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") was released at the 2026 Bund Annual Conference on the 20th. The report, with the theme of "China's New Economic Paradigm: Drivers, Trends and Policy Implications", provides an overall framework for understanding the current economic transformation of China. The report predicts that new economy and AI (artificial intelligence) investment will continue to be important factors supporting manufacturing investment and investment rates, and AI investment will have a greater stimulating effect on manufacturing investment in the future.

The report further analyzes the specific mechanism of AI's impact on productivity, pointing out that there are four main paths: first, automation, that is, AI takes over tasks originally completed by workers; second, task complementarity, that is, AI takes on some work links and improves the efficiency of workers completing the remaining links; third, automation deepening, that is, AI further reduces the cost of tasks that have been completed by machines; fourth, new task creation, that is, AI spawns new products, positions, and production links, expanding the range of tasks that can be produced.

While the domestic investment structure is changing, Chinese companies will continue to advance overseas. The report pointed out that in the future, it will still be a general trend for Chinese enterprises to go overseas, and the form of going overseas will further extend from commodity exports in the past to overseas investment, localized production and industrial chain layout.

It is worth noting that the acceleration of Chinese enterprises going overseas will also bring about a longer-term change, that is, the basis for RMB internationalization will change. In the past, RMB internationalization relied more on China's huge trade scale. In the future, as more and more Chinese companies invest, produce, and operate overseas, the use of RMB will further extend from trade settlement to cross-border financing, corporate fund management, and overseas asset allocation. Corporate globalization itself will become a new driving force for RMB internationalization.

At the same time, the report emphasizes that the "new paradigm" is not an inevitable "brave new world", nor does it refer to some completed stable state. The true meaning of the "new paradigm" is that driven by a series of important factors, China's economy will present a completely different operating model compared to the past few years. (over)