Bank AIC Accelerates Investment in Hard Tech, Over 58 Projects in First Half of 2026
Securities Times reporters: Xie Zhongxiang, Liu Xiaoyou
Bank financial asset investment companies (AICs) are accelerating their investment in hard technology.
Recently, the domestic memory giant Changxin Technology's IPO on the STAR Market received approval from the CSRC, and with a proposed total fundraising of 295 billion yuan, it became the second largest IPO in the history of the STAR Market. Almost simultaneously, another memory giant, Yangtze Memory Technologies, officially launched its IPO guidance. It is worth noting that the five largest state-owned bank AICs all appeared on the shareholder lists of the two memory giants.
This is a microcosm of the accelerated influx of bank-backed long-term capital into hard technology. According to不完全 statistics from Securities Times, in the first half of 2026, nine AICs—ICBC Investment, ABC Investment, BOC Asset, CCB Investment, BoCom Investment, Postal Investment, CMB Investment, CIB Investment, and CITIC Financial Gold Investment—participated in over 58 investment funds or projects. Since the expansion of AIC equity investment pilot to 18 cities in 2025, the intended amount of AIC equity investment contracts has exceeded 380 billion yuan. Among them, the new scale in 2025 approached 100 billion yuan, accounting for about 10% of the national new equity investment scale.
Over 58 Investment Projects in the First Half
Since 2026, AIC investment momentum has accelerated, with nine AICs investing in over 58 projects in total, nearly reaching the full-year level of 2024. Geographically, newly established funds are mainly concentrated in 18 pilot cities, with Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing, and Chongqing becoming key areas.
Securities Times reporters noted that newly established AICs—CIB Investment, CITIC Financial Gold Investment, CMB Investment, and Postal Investment—have also landed relevant investment projects in succession this year. Among them, CIB Investment's cumulative investment scale exceeded 6 billion yuan within 45 days of opening, and it participated in 10 funds or projects in 2026, leading among joint-stock bank AICs. CITIC Financial Gold Investment landed its first project one week after opening, investing 64.42 million yuan in Shenzhen Ganghua Dingxin Clean Energy. CMB Investment's funds were invested in Deep Blue Automotive and the semiconductor etching equipment consumables company Four-Phase Semiconductor. Postal Investment completed a strategic stake in a subsidiary of Huayou Cobalt in early June 2026.
From a trend perspective, AICs tend to "cluster" invest in industry leaders. On June 5, together with Postal Investment, CIB Investment and CITIC Financial Gold Investment also invested in Guangxi Huayou New Materials, with three AICs jointly increasing capital by 2.6 billion yuan to invest in the lithium battery cathode material precursor field. Previously, CIB Investment, CITIC Financial Gold Investment, BOC Asset, BoCom Investment, and others jointly made a strategic capital increase of 2 billion yuan to Longbai Group's subsidiary, Billions New Materials, aiming to break through the "bottleneck" technology of chlorination titanium dioxide.
According to incomplete surveys by Securities Times reporters, various AICs have shown differentiated track preferences. For example, ICBC Investment has the widest coverage, spanning from Guangdong Robot Fund to Chongqing Aerospace Information Low-Altitude Economy Fund, covering AI, integrated circuits, green low-carbon, high-end equipment, and more. ABC Investment, under its "Qianfan Qihang" brand, focuses on integrated circuits, with its invested GPU leader Moore Threads successfully listed on the STAR Market. BOC Asset, under its "Zhongying Fuyao" brand, targets the embodied intelligence track, participating in the financing of Galaxy General, which also attracted the national big fund phase III. CCB Investment built the "Jianyuan" brand, actively participating in multiple provincial social security science and innovation funds in Sichuan, Hubei, Fujian, etc., and established the first AIC industry parent fund in Shenzhen. BoCom Investment, under its "Jiaorong" brand, deeply cultivates commercial aerospace, with its invested company Jiuzhou Yunjian's "Longyun" engine used in the Long March 12A carrier rocket, and the company also participated in a 2.4 billion yuan Series D financing of Galactic Energy.
Banks Increase Funding Budgets
A venture capital industry practitioner told Securities Times reporters: "Bank AICs may be rewriting the pattern of hard tech venture capital." For banks, AICs, as their key equity investment vehicles, have also begun to serve as a lever to hedge against narrowing interest spreads and contribute incremental earnings.
Taking China Merchants Bank as an example, Wang Xiaoqing, Party Secretary and proposed president of the bank, revealed at the recent shareholders' meeting that CMB Investment has arranged a budget of over ten billion yuan this year. "We are highly focused on the equity investment field and have shared in the corresponding part of the returns over the years. We will further focus on equity investment opportunities in the new quality productive forces field in the future," Wang Xiaoqing said.
Recently, Bank of China President Zhang Hui also stated at the bank's shareholders' meeting that Bank of China had invested 1 billion yuan in Yangtze Memory Technologies through its AIC in 2023, with an estimated valuation of about 160 billion yuan at that time, holding a 0.61% stake. In 2024, Bank of China continued to invest 600 million yuan in Changxin Technology, with an estimated valuation of about 150 billion yuan at investment, currently holding a 0.38% stake.
According to Zhang Hui, Bank of China is comprehensively upgrading its comprehensive financial services covering the full lifecycle of technology enterprises, systematically creating a six-chain product spectrum around six key links: scientific research talents, concept verification, pilot R&D, pilot transformation, industry leap, and global expansion.
From Debt-to-Equity to Patient Capital
Dong Ximiao, chief economist at China Merchants Union and executive director of the Shanghai Institute of Finance and Development, told Securities Times reporters that AICs have gradually evolved from professional financial institutions initially focused on debt-to-equity swaps into "long-term capital providers" supporting technological innovation.
This transformation is accompanied by a distinct "equity-debt linkage" feature. AICs not only supplement enterprise capital through equity investment but also link with parent banks to provide project loans and supply chain finance, covering the full lifecycle of enterprises.
However, the deep-rooted "debt thinking" in the banking system cannot be overlooked. Dong Ximiao pointed out that traditional credit culture revolves around principal and interest repayment, default rates, and collateral, while equity investment in technology enterprises requires forward-looking assessment of technology paths, R&D risks, and future market space. "This mismatch in cultural genes often leads AICs to be conservative in risk appetite and decision-making mechanisms."
In addition, mechanism bottlenecks are also evident. In April this year, Feng Junfu, chairman of ICBC Investment, said at the second AIC Equity Investment Seminar that the expansion of AICs has placed higher demands on the entire industry, especially challenges from capital balancing capabilities. At the same time, the ability to balance risk control is also important. It is difficult to guarantee a high success rate for individual projects. How to ensure overall interests is undoubtedly a challenge for risk control.
Dong Ximiao also said that most AIC teams come from bank credit lines and lack professionals with industry backgrounds and hands-on equity investment experience. Moreover, the existing assessment cycle still emphasizes short-term profits and risk indicators, which is severely out of sync with the 5-7 year growth cycle of technology enterprises.
"If culture, talent, and assessment mechanisms cannot be fundamentally reshaped, the effectiveness of equity investment will be constrained by internal mechanism bottlenecks for a long time," Dong Ximiao suggested. Next, we should explore ideas, support city commercial banks and rural commercial banks with standardized management and strong innovation vitality to set up investment subsidiaries, and simultaneously amend financial laws and regulatory systems to reasonably determine the risk weights of commercial bank equity investments and reduce the capital occupation of equity investments.
(Note: The original article includes tags such as "龙佰集团", "具身智能", "商业航天" and a disclaimer, which have been removed as site chrome.)
