MIIT: China's Digital Industry Revenue Reaches 20.71 Trillion Yuan in H1, Profits Up 19.3% YoY
Nashnova编辑部
China's digital industries earned ¥20.71 trillion in revenue and ¥1.79 trillion in profit in H1 2026, with profit growth at 19.3% far outpacing revenue growth — AI demand and strong exports are shifting the sector from scaling up to actually making money.
Profit growing nearly 6 points faster than revenue — what does that tell us?
H1 digital-industry revenue rose 13.6% year-on-year; profit rose 19.3% — profit is outrunning the top line.
This means → the sector is not just selling more — profit per yuan of revenue is getting thicker, with the margin reaching 8.6%.
MIIT attributes the profit surge to two forces: surging AI demand + strong exports — domestic pull and foreign pull firing at the same time.
Where is the money concentrated?
The top 10 provinces and cities — Guangdong, Jiangsu, Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang and others — accounted for ¥17.21 trillion, or 83.1% of the national total.
In plain terms = more than four-fifths of China's digital-industry revenue comes from just 10 regions.
But central China is growing faster: ¥2.86 trillion in revenue, up 28.3% — nearly 15 points above the national average, led by Anhui and Hubei.
This reflects a geographic spread: digital industry is no longer a coastal-only story.
AI computing power up 177% — how extreme is that number?
China's intelligent computing capacity — the processing power dedicated to AI training and inference — reached 2,185 EFLOPS, up 177% year-on-year.
This means → in a single year, AI-specific computing nearly tripled, reflecting a construction boom in GPU clusters and smart-computing centres.
The country now has 52 facilities with over 10,000 cards each; overall rack utilisation stands at 71.4%.
In plain terms = a lot of machines have been bought and 70% are powered on and running — but nearly 30% sit idle. Whether that gap closes in H2, generating real commercial returns, is the key test.
Electronics manufacturing profits surged 66% — who is making the money?
Large-scale electronic-information manufacturers posted ¥12.15 trillion in revenue, up 17.8%; profit hit ¥703.6 billion, up a stunning 66%.
MIIT named the three biggest profit drivers: integrated circuits, finished-computer manufacturing, and specialised electronic materials.
This means → chipmakers and computer builders are the main force behind this profit explosion — AI demand is pulling upstream manufacturing margins sharply higher.
The electronics sector's value-added grew 14.8%, outpacing overall industry by 9.4 percentage points — far ahead of every other industrial category.
How are software and internet companies doing?
Software and IT services revenue rose 9.5%; within that, IT-services revenue grew 10.4%.
Large-scale internet companies' revenue rose 10.1%, accelerating by 7 percentage points versus H1 last year; profit grew 16.6%.
This means → the internet sector, nearly stagnant a year ago, is clearly recovering — and profit growth is once again beating revenue growth.
What is the single most important question for H2?
Profit growth (19.3%) continues to outpace revenue growth (13.6%); profitability is still improving, and the trend has not peaked.
But the biggest open question sits on the computing side: intelligent computing surged 177% with massive capital deployed, yet rack utilisation at 71.4% still has room to rise.
In plain terms = the money has been spent and the machines are installed — what H2 must prove is: can all that computing power actually run at capacity and earn its keep? The answer determines whether this investment wave ends as "high returns" or "high inventory."
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.