Date: 2025-03-08 hits: 445
The field of artificial intelligence welcomes another major breakthrough. Chinese company wDeepSeek recently released its latest generation open-source inference model R1, which has performance comparable to OpenAl's latest o1 Jin model and is open for free use by the public. The industry generally believes that this move will promote the A1 model to enter a new stage of open source, low-cost application, and efficient and inclusive, and significantly accelerate the implementation process of A | technology in various terminal fields.
In traditional application fields, including the consumer electronics industry such as personal computers (PCs) and smartphones, as well as the new energy vehicle industry, they are actively embracing this change. Many terminal manufacturers are competing to include "Al Agent/AI Carrier/AI Application" in their product iteration plans, hoping that this wave of A | technology can open up a new round of market demand and replacement cycle.
At the same time, in emerging markets, the accelerated iteration of AI models is also expected to significantly promote the commercialization process of smart wearable devices, humanoid robots, and so on.
For the lithium battery industry, the above trend undoubtedly indicates the resurgence of market demand ceiling and the accelerated opening of the industry's upward channel.
AI big model accelerates terminal application penetration
Specifically, AI big model technology is accelerating its penetration into the field of new energy vehicles. Several mainstream domestic car companies, including Geely Automobile, GAC Group, SAIC Motor, Dongfeng Motor, Leapmotor, and Great Wall Motors, have successively announced their deep integration of the DeepSeekR1 model in order to seize the first mover advantage in the field of intelligent automobiles.
In the field of consumer electronics, the industry generally believes that PC products have both productivity tool attributes, and users have a higher pursuit of performance experience, making them an ideal terminal platform for carrying larger scale local A1 models. The market forecast report shows that the global AIPC shipment volume is expected to exceed 100 million units by 2025, and the market penetration rate is expected to reach 40%; By 2028, AIPC shipments will exceed 200 million units, and the penetration rate will further climb to 70%.
The smartphone market is also undergoing changes, and the shipment scale of A1 smartphones is expected to exceed 500 million units. In addition, with Xiaomi A! Glasses are expected to be released soon as an opportunity, and the AI glasses market will also enter a period of rapid growth. Related predictions show that by 2035, global sales of AI glasses are expected to exceed 1 billion pairs, with a market penetration rate of 70%.
Market trends show that leading consumer battery companies have actively embraced the A wave. Rujia Technology has clearly proposed the "Ain A!" strategy and is making forward-looking layouts in emerging fields such as AI glasses, AI headphones and hearing aids, AI robots, AI toys, etc. It plans to promote the large-scale production of related battery products by 2025.
AI application upgrade drives battery performance leap
The surge in demand for AI computing power from terminal devices such as smartphones and PCs directly drives battery performance to iteratively upgrade to higher levels. Higher energy density and better cycling performance have become the core requirements for new intelligent terminal batteries. At the same time, considering the shortening of the replacement cycle of consumer electronics products and the increasingly fierce market competition, the market's price sensitivity to high-performance batteries has decreased, creating favorable conditions for the large-scale application and process verification of new battery materials and technologies.
In the field of consumer electronics, the application value of astatine based negative electrode materials is increasingly prominent. On the one hand, smartphones and PCs are accelerating the increase of silicon doping ratio in batteries. On the other hand, smart wearable devices have taken the lead in exploring the application path of high doped silicon-based to pure silicon negative electrode batteries.
In 2024, silicon-based negative electrode materials will be widely used in high-end mobile phone models, and there will be a trend of penetration from flagship models to the mid to low end market. Mobile phone batteries using astatine based negative electrode materials have a capacity that can exceed the 6000mAh threshold. The market generally expects that the demand for silicon-based negative electrode materials in the consumer electronics field will experience a certain growth by 2025, and the silicon doping ratio is expected to increase to over 10% to meet the continuous expansion of smart terminal battery capacity towards 7000mAh and even 8000mAh.
Jiapeng Technology has made breakthroughs in the development of high silicon content lithium-ion batteries, and related products have been applied in the field of smart wearable devices. The company also plans to jointly develop 100% silicon negative lithium-ion batteries with European materials strategic partners to meet the project needs of well-known smart wearable brand customers in North America.
The NL new positive electrode material actively promoted by Xiamen Tungsten New Energy in recent years is based on a layered structure of ternary materials and lithium cobalt oxide. By selectively doping two inexpensive metal elements to replace some precious metals, it significantly improves key performance indicators such as energy density and charge discharge rate, while effectively controlling material costs. It is expected to gradually replace some lithium cobalt oxide materials in the consumer electronics field (the upper limit of the latter's effective operating voltage is limited to below 4.6V).
According to Wu Tungsten New Energy, the new positive electrode material series has been developed in cooperation with overseas battery companies and is planned to be first applied in the mobile phone field by 2025. After completing market validation performance optimization, process maturity, and cost reduction, this material is expected to further expand into the field of power batteries.
It is worth noting that the consumer electronics industry is also relatively leading in the research and application of solid-state batteries. For example, sulfide all solid state batteries developed by companies such as Yili Technology have been mass-produced for consumer electronics products such as smart watches; Samsung SDI has also publicly stated that it is expected to be the first to apply all solid state battery technology to wearable devices such as smartwatches.
AI data center infrastructure drives demand for energy storage batteries
The emergence and accelerated application of AI big models cannot be separated from the support of large-scale computing infrastructure. A with data center as the core! Infrastructure has become a global development trend.
The power of a traditional data center single cabinet within 10KW is no longer sufficient to meet the needs of computing power operation. A1! The power of a single cabinet in a data center has significantly increased, typically ranging from 20KW to 100KW, with some advanced data centers even exceeding 100kW.
At the same time, A! Data centers have extremely high requirements for power supply stability, driving an increase in demand for energy storage systems and backup power sources. Overseas battery companies such as Samsung SD1 and Panasonic have identified data center energy storage as a key growth direction for 2025. Samsung SDI expects that the demand for power in US data centers will drive a 14% increase in the energy storage market and plans to expand sales of BBU products.
For a long time, the power supply of data center power systems has been mainly dominated by overseas battery companies. For Chinese lithium battery companies, on the one hand, meeting the rapidly growing demand for data center power systems in overseas markets may become an important component of their overseas strategy. On the other hand, the accelerated penetration of advanced AI models such as DeepSeek in terminal applications will also promote the further development of AI infrastructure such as data centers in China, bringing practical market opportunities for domestic lithium battery companies.
AI empowers the value of lithium batteries to increase
The widespread application of A! Technology in terminals is expected to significantly increase the value of lithium battery products. In the field of consumer electronics, the increase in single unit battery capacity of AIPC and AI smartphones is expected to reach 10% -15%, which will directly drive the increase in demand for consumer batteries and effectively improve the average sales price of battery products.
The pursuit of higher performance in AI batteries is accelerating the introduction and application of new battery technologies such as silicon-based negative electrodes. Product selection and upgrading are also expected to improve the overall gross profit margin of battery products.
In the field of data center power supply, taking BBU batteries as an example, their market value is much higher than traditional power tool batteries. For example, the unit price of 18650 batteries of the same specification in the electric tool market is only 5.5-6 yuan, while the application of dry BBU scenarios can reach more than 10 yuan: the unit price of 4.0Ah 21700 specification BBU batteries is more likely to exceed 21 yuan, and the industry average net profit margin exceeds 50%.
Panasonic Battery disclosed in its 2024 annual financial report that the company achieved both revenue and profit growth in the fourth quarter, with operating profit increasing by over 96% year-on-year. The main driving force for performance growth comes from the energy storage system business for AI data centers.
Overall, the rapid development of A! Technology is having a profound impact on the lithium battery industry. From the trend of replacing consumer electronics terminals to the rise of the data center energy storage market, the demand boundary of the lithium battery industry is constantly expanding. For Chinese lithium battery companies, whether it is the expansion of existing terminal markets or the outbreak of emerging application markets, it means considerable order growth and profit margins. In the new round of industrial transformation led by AI, the lithium battery industry is entering an unprecedented period of development opportunities.
