전통적인 제약 회사가 수십억 위안 규모의 컴퓨팅 파워 계약을 체결했으며, 주주 대출과 기관 자금 조달을 통해 의무를 이행하고 있다.

On the evening of September 16, after market close, Kanghui Shares (603139.SH) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Beijing Kanghui Zhichuang Technology Co., Ltd., signed a five-year computing power services contract with Client A. The total amount, including tax, is approximately 1.72 billion yuan. The company simultaneously disclosed an upstream procurement contract, under which Beijing Kanghui Zhichuang will purchase high-performance computing servers from Supplier G for a total contract value of approximately 1.141 billion yuan.

This is not an isolated case in the pharmaceutical sector. Shortly before, Wanhong Zhisuan, a holding subsidiary of Yuewannianqing (301111.SZ), also secured a long-term computing power leasing framework order exceeding one billion yuan. Executing such businesses requires not only corporate own funds but also reliance on shareholder loans, financial institution financing, and other channels to fulfill contractual obligations.

Pharmaceutical companies are entering the computing power space via different pathways. Some are making pure cross-industry moves, establishing new subsidiaries, procuring hardware independently, and offering computing power leasing to external clients. Others primarily procure computing power to serve their own new drug R&D processes.

A static accounting difference of less than 600 million yuan

Kanghui Shares’ order represents another billion-level framework contract in the pharma-to-computing-leasing crossover track.

According to the announcement, the computing services contract spans five years. The subsidiary will handle the procurement, networking, and storage deployment of computing servers. Through software-hardware adaptation and multi-workload collaborative tuning, it will deliver computing resources meeting agreed performance metrics to Client A. Following equipment acceptance, it will provide 24/7/365 full-cycle operation and maintenance services, with the client paying monthly service fees.

Computing resources will be delivered in batches from the end of Q3 2026 through the end of Q1 2027. If executed on schedule, the project is expected to generate approximately 30 million yuan in additional revenue for the company in 2026, with the impact on this year’s net profit currently undeterminable.

To undertake this large order, upfront hardware investment is required. Beijing Kanghui Zhichuang signed the 1.141 billion yuan server procurement contract with Supplier G, stipulating that payment for each batch of equipment must be settled in full within 50 days of arrival.

This will create short-term, large-scale payment pressure for the listed company. The company noted that funding for the purchases, aside from a small portion of own funds, will mainly rely on financial institution financing. If the project proceeds as planned and financing is successfully secured, the company’s asset-liability ratio is projected to rise from 69% at the end of June 2026 to around 78%, with a corresponding increase in interest-bearing debt.

A rough static calculation shows that while Kanghui Shares invests 1.141 billion yuan upstream for servers, it will collect 1.72 billion yuan in computing service fees over the next five years, yielding a static difference of less than 600 million yuan. However, this figure does not account for financing interest, equipment depreciation, electricity, and O&M costs, and therefore does not represent actual achievable profits.

The timeline returns to September 2025, when Kanghui Shares completed a change in actual controller. The new controllers, Li Hongming and Wang Xuefang—known in the industry as the “computing power couple”—control Yi’an Tianxia, a New Third Board-listed enterprise whose main business is computing services and intelligent computing center construction and operations. Subsequently, the listed company established a strategy of “consolidate the core pharma business while pursuing diversified synergy,” positioning computing power as a second growth curve alongside its traditional Chinese patent medicine operations.

In October 2025, the listed company injected 90 million yuan into Beijing Kanghui Zhichuang, raising its registered capital from 10 million yuan to 100 million yuan to serve as the core operational platform for the computing business. In 2026, the company continued to establish joint ventures with external entities for computing-related subsidiaries, landing data center renovation projects.

Billion-level computing orders continuously secured

Time-honored traditional Chinese medicine manufacturer Yuewannianqing recently also issued a large computing framework order.

On August 27, Yuewannianqing announced that Wanhong Zhisuan, a holding subsidiary established just three months prior, signed a Service Procurement Agreement with anonymous Client A to provide GPU computing cloud services and supporting O&M support. The agreement spans five years with an estimated total tax-inclusive value of 1.244 billion yuan.

Wanhong Zhisuan was jointly established by Yuewannianqing and a subsidiary of computing service provider Hongjing Technology, with Yuewannianqing holding a 59% stake. Citing trade secrets, the company applied for exemption from disclosing the client’s name. The business is estimated to have a gross margin between 10% and 20%. Given the high cost of hardware procurement, funding will primarily come from own funds, shareholder loans, and financial institution financing. The contract is not expected to materially impact 2026 operating results.

Notably, both companies featured anonymized counterparties in their disclosures. For Kanghui Shares, the downstream client and upstream supplier were referred to as “Client A” and “Supplier G”; a separate computing services contract signed by Beijing Kanghui Zhichuang in July 2026 valued between 415 million and 679 million yuan was similarly attributed to “Client D.” The company explained this follows industry practice; at the client’s confidentiality request, they applied for information disclosure exemptions from the exchange.

According to the announcements, neither Client A nor Supplier G has any affiliation with the listed company’s controlling shareholders, actual controllers, directors, supervisors, or senior management. Supplier G is a holding subsidiary of an A+H share-listed company, possesses strong creditworthiness, and has sufficient capacity to fulfill contractual obligations.

Comparing Kanghui Shares and Yuewannianqing, their business models are highly similar. Both established dedicated subsidiaries as computing operation carriers, signed long-term framework contracts with billion-level totals, require concentrated large payments for upstream server procurement, settle downstream computing service fees monthly, and recognize revenue gradually over multiple years throughout the contract period.

It is also worth noting that pharmaceutical companies pursue different paths in computing layout. Kanghui Shares and Yuewannianqing adopt an outward-facing computing leasing model, purchasing hardware to provide computing services to external third parties and earning price differentials.

By contrast, in July 2026, Proya Pharmaceutical signed an agreement with China Telecom Jinhua Branch to co-build a pharmaceutical intelligent computing resource pool. The computing power primarily serves internal R&D stages such as molecular simulation, drug screening, and toxicology prediction, while adhering to data security requirements that “data remains within the enterprise and does not cross borders.” Although the project explores opening computing power to upstream and downstream industry chains, its primary objective is internal R&D empowerment, representing a fundamentally different commercial model from pure external leasing.

Stagnant core business: Can the second growth track succeed?

From an operational standpoint, both companies’ traditional core businesses have hit growth ceilings. Their actual controllers or partners hold existing computing industry resources, attempting to build a “pharma + computing” dual-core business structure.

Currently, the computing power leasing sector is experiencing a high-growth cycle. According to publicly available data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China’s domestic computing power leasing market reached 68 billion yuan in Q1 2026, up 62% year-on-year, with the full-year market size expected to exceed 260 billion yuan. Domestic AI computing demand surged 417% year-on-year, while supply growth lagged at 128%, pushing high-end GPU utilization rates above 90%.

Returning to the fundamentals of these two companies, their traditional pharma businesses both face varying degrees of operational pressure.

Kanghui Shares, formerly known as Kanghui Pharmaceutical, relies on flagship products including Xiaoyin Granules and Compound Shuanghua Tablets. In 2025, the company reported a net loss of 333 million yuan, with several subsidiaries falling into operational difficulties and entering pre-reorganization procedures.

In the first half of 2026, the company generated 205 million yuan in operating revenue, a year-on-year decline of 17.05%. While net profit turned to a book profit of 9.09 million yuan, it still posted a loss of 19.7629 million yuan after deducting non-recurring gains and losses. Profits were driven primarily by non-recurring items such as asset disposal gains, indicating the pharma core business has not yet truly emerged from operational distress.

Yuewannianqing similarly faces slowing growth in its core business. This century-old “time-honored brand” pharmaceutical company reported 145 million yuan in H1 2026 operating revenue, down 6.47% year-on-year. Profit improvement stemmed mainly from reduced losses following the disposal of two unprofitable subsidiaries in late 2025. While its medical services and health consumer goods segments saw growth, overall revenue scale remains limited.

Yuewannianqing’s partnership model carries distinct regional industrial integration characteristics. Its actual controller, Ou Xiantao, and Hongjing Technology’s actual controller, Ouyang Hua, are both entrepreneurs from Shantou, Guangdong. One party provides computing technology and project operational capabilities, while the other contributes the listed company’s entity credit and capital, with the joint venture absorbing external computing orders.

With core businesses peaking, pharmaceutical companies are forging new paths, turning to the computing track as a fresh narrative. (Originally published on TMTPost App. Author: Cao Sanjin. Editor: Cao Shengyuan.)