OpenClaw has sparked frenzied buying on mainland China’s stock markets, defying the broader gloom stemming from Middle East hostilities, as investors chase companies compatible with deploying the open-source artificial intelligence tool.
OpenClaw’s meteoric rise has fuelled the so-called “lobster” trade, a buzzword coined by traders after the AI tool’s logo.
Hangzhou Shunwang Technology, which claimed it had embedded OpenClaw in its AI cloud infrastructure, soared 21 per cent in Shenzhen over the past week. Talkweb Information System, another software developer listed in Shenzhen that plans to roll out new products based on OpenClaw, jumped 12 per cent in the same period. Beijing Vrv Software, also listed in Shenzhen, advanced 15 per cent after saying it had completed the connection to OpenClaw. Meanwhile, the benchmark CSI 300 Index rose 0.9 per cent in the same period.
The disconnect between these stocks and the broader market underscores the popularity of OpenClaw among investors, who are struggling to identify new market themes after concerns about AI disruption and stagflation surfaced. As such, OpenClaw can autonomously carry out tasks on users’ computers and mobile phones, such as sorting documents, installing software and even undertaking online shopping. Its roll-out is expected to speed up AI adoption in daily life.
A man holds a placard featuring OpenClaw, an open-source AI assistant in Beijing. Photo: AFP
“While it’s in the early stages, [OpenClaw] remains the key to connecting large-language models to the end-user scenarios,” said Wang Jun, an analyst at BOC International in Shanghai. “It’s expected to make the breakthrough from ‘answer question’ to ‘perform tasks’.”
To leverage the OpenClaw trade, investors should focus more on large-language model developers capable of integrating the AI tool on a large scale, said Wang.