Why Chinese stocks are surging over Nvidia CEO's OpenClaw endorsement

Chinese AI stocks are surging on Wednesday after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gave investors exactly the kind of signal they were waiting for.

Huang publicly endorsed OpenClaw at Nvidia’s flagship event, marking a big signal from one of AI’s most influential chip leaders.

Stocks like MiniMax and Zhipu surged more than 20% on Wednesday as Huang’s comments fed into a theme that had already been gathering momentum across China’s tech market.

The rally hit a market that was already gearing up for an OpenClaw trade, so Wednesday’s jump felt less like a random spike and more like things speeding up.

What Nvidia CEO say?

In a CNBC interview around GTC, the Nvidia chief said OpenClaw is “definitely the next ChatGPT,” framing it as a major shift in how people interact with AI.

Huang described the technology as moving beyond AI chatbots and stepping into the direction of AI agents.

That idea has become central to the investment case.

Huang said every company now needs an OpenClaw strategy, and from what people shared about his keynote, he compared it to big platforms like Windows, Linux, Kubernetes, and HTML.

For investos, the language sounds like a greenlight as it signals that Nvidia sees OpenClaw not as a niche tool but as a foundational computing layer.

There was a second catalyst on the same day.

Huang also said Nvidia had received purchase orders from China for H200 processors and was restarting manufacturing to meet that demand.

China’s lobster craze was already running hot

Huang didn’t spark China’s interest in OpenClaw, he just turned up the volume.

Earlier this month, Tencent, Zhipu, and MiniMax were already riding a local frenzy, with companies rushing to launch OpenClaw-ready products and investors piling in.

MiniMax and Zhipu shares saw a notable jump after they started integrating OpenClaw tools into their offerings.

MiniMax was already standing out even before GTC.

The stock jumped over 28% in a single day on March 10, pushing its market value past HK$380 billion after a massive post-IPO run.

But the same report also hints at why some investors are getting cautious as MiniMax brought in just $79 million in revenue in 2025.

What really stands out about the China story is how fast it’s gone beyond just software and into culture and policy.

Local reports from Shenzhen’s Longgang district show officials already talking about “Lobster Service Zones” for OpenClaw, along with subsidies for data services.

Some of the measures include covering up to 50% of certain data-governance costs and around 30% for specific AI storage devices.

The developments indicate that the local governements are aggressively are trying to build a full ecosystem around it.

For now, a lot of the optimism is riding on Huang’s credibility.

His endorsement has definitely given China’s AI trade a fresh boost, but what happens next really depends on whether companies can turn that hype into real usage and solid revenue.