China’s export machine has found a new gear, and it runs on artificial intelligence. April exports climbed 14.1% year-over-year, with AI-related products like semiconductors and integrated circuits doing the heavy lifting, pushing the yuan to its strongest level in over three years.
The currency hit 6.8062 CNY per USD in mid-April. For a country that spent years managing a weaker yuan to juice exports, letting the currency strengthen while exports simultaneously surge suggests the underlying economics have fundamentally shifted.
High-tech is half the story, literally
Here’s the number that matters most: high-tech exports jumped 39.2% year-over-year in April. According to Goldman Sachs analysts, that category accounted for roughly half of total export growth. In English: for every two dollars of new export revenue China generated, one came from advanced technology products.
The products driving this surge, semiconductors, integrated circuits, and advanced power equipment, are precisely the categories where global demand has exploded as companies race to build out AI infrastructure.
