供应链、能源与阵营化：梳理2026 AI投资的核心主线

Original title: My 2026 Outlook: The Year Geopolitics Becomes the Macro

Original author: Steve Hou

Original translation: Peggy

Editor's note: The macro theme of 2026 may no longer be just a routine cyclical shift, but a phase where geopolitical restructuring enters the pricing stage. For decades, the US has maintained the global system as the guarantor of trade, security, and financial order. Now, with its declining share of global GDP and increasing domestic political constraints, this model is shifting from 'global coverage' to a more bounded 'bloc system'.

The core judgment of this article is that the investment framework for the coming year should move from traditional 'growth-inflation' cycle analysis towards judgments on strategic blocs, supply chain重塑, and the direction of capital expenditure. Those within the US-preferred supply chain, possessing credible institutions, industrial capacity, and energy carrying capacity, are likely to become beneficiaries of a new round of global asset revaluation. Japan, South Korea, Latin America, European industrial leaders, as well as power grids, energy storage, automation, robotics, and AI infrastructure, are all included in this logical chain.

The article particularly emphasizes that manufacturing reshoring is not just a political slogan, but a systematic reallocation constrained by labor, energy, power grids, and security boundaries. The US cannot complete the internalization of all production alone, hence the increased importance of allied economies; energy and power grids become the hard constraints of industrial policy; AI, as the core battleground of US-China competition, will continue to drive high-intensity investment in computing power, electricity, networks, and the manufacturing stack.

For investors, this means that opportunities in 2026 may not lie in the crowded momentum trades of US large-cap tech stocks, but in finding the 'shovel sellers' of this restructuring globally: electrification equipment, industrial automation, energy storage, power grid infrastructure, defense bottleneck segments, and non-US markets benefiting from supply chain redesign. This article offers not a single asset recommendation, but a geopolitical framework for understanding global macro and asset rotation in 2026.

Below is the original text:

The defining characteristic of 2026 will not be a standard business cycle turning point, but a watershed moment reached by an already unfolding geopolitical restructuring. For decades, the US played an expansive role in the global economy: anchoring global trade flows, underwriting the security order, and acting as the default guarantor of the post-war order. But this model is changing because the structural arithmetic has shifted: the US share of global GDP is no longer sufficient to support commitments of the same breadth, and its domestic political constraints increasingly point towards strategic retrenchment.

This does not mean US influence is disappearing, but that it is being reconfigured. The US is moving from a broadly encompassing global posture towards clearer 'bloc' models: preferred supply chains, trusted investment channels, and more selective, regionalized security commitments. This has been the core catalyst behind a series of major correct judgments over the past two years and will remain the primary framework for understanding 2026.

In this new landscape, the most important questions for investors become: who is within this preferential system, who is excluded, and which assets will benefit from this redesign?

1) The New Bloc System: Winners are Productive Economies Aligned with the US

The outperforming emerging markets are not just those with favorable demographics, but economies with strategic alignment, stability, and productive capacity within the US-led system. Countries with civil liberties, institutional resilience, and democratic governance become important because the US bloc requires trust: trust in contracts, political continuity, intellectual property protection, and supply chain security.

But more importantly, the 'US bloc' is not limited to developing countries. It will also include developed economies with strategic industrial capabilities and technological depth. For example, Japan and South Korea are natural beneficiaries as investment flows out of China and the BRICS bloc (excluding India). They are key nodes in semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, and industrial robotics—the backbone of the US bloc's supply chain.

At the same time, the US itself faces a paradox. Politically, it wants manufacturing reshoring; strategically, it needs supply chain independence; but economically, it lacks sufficient labor to fully internalize the required production base. Simply put, the US does not have enough cheap, young labor to build new supply chains entirely on its own soil. It is this constraint that makes allied and quasi-allied regions more critical.

2) Defense Restructuring: From 'Big Tent' to 'Regional Fortress'

If the first layer of change occurs in the economic sphere, the second layer unfolds in the security domain. As the US moves from a 'big, open tent' to smaller, more defensible regional fortresses, the meaning of 'defense' will change markedly. The emerging strategy resembles a modernized Monroe Doctrine: focusing on protecting the nearby region and critical chokepoints, rather than maintaining maximized global reach.

This shift places Latin America at the core. It is the US's home turf, and will be treated as such by the US. The geopolitical logic is straightforward: supply chains cannot be secure if the neighborhood is unstable. This means that to make the region suitable for large-scale capital deployment and integration into US supply chains, political and institutional changes will be increasingly encouraged—whether implicitly or explicitly.

An important implication is that over time, Chinese influence in Latin America will be gradually squeezed out. As the region pivots politically rightward and aligns more closely with the US, inflation and interest rates could fall, while growth may rise. The mechanism is not mysterious: foreign direct investment increases capital expenditure, expands production capacity, strengthens external accounts, and improves currency credibility.

This could form a virtuous cycle: trade growth accelerates, industrial upgrading speeds up, and economic growth becomes broader, less reliant solely on commodity exports. Commodities will still be central, but their spillover effects will become increasingly apparent in financial and discretionary consumer sectors, as domestic credit systems deepen and middle-class consumption becomes more resilient.

3) Energy: The Hard Constraint on Manufacturing Reshoring

Supply chain restructuring faces a hard constraint in the developed world: energy and grid capacity.

As the US, Europe, and allied economies attempt to bring production back and secure it, they are discovering their energy systems are severely lacking: aging grids, underinvestment, and strategic exposure to unreliable energy sources. This shapes a clear theme for 2026: energy shortages will become a limiting factor for industrial policy.

This will drive a series of investment impulses:

• Increasing energy imports from allies
• Accelerating renewable energy construction
• Reviving focus on nuclear power
• Large-scale upgrades to grid networks
• Expanding logistics and raw material needs

Solar and wind power are already gaining momentum because they scale faster than traditional baseload infrastructure. Nuclear cannot be built quickly through 'incremental' approaches; natural gas cannot ramp up swiftly without expensive pipeline construction and approvals. In contrast, renewables can be deployed modularly, faster, more widely, and with greater political ease for expansion.

Of course, the missing piece is reliability. This is where energy storage comes in. Batteries are becoming key tools for peak load management and grid stability, and continued advances in battery technology, coupled with increasing investment, are making the energy storage value chain increasingly strategic. Manufacturing reshoring, energy, and security converge here: the grid is becoming a national security asset.

4) Europe: Within the Same Bloc, Constrained by Growth, but Home to Highest Quality 'Shovel Sellers'

Europe could be one of the most misunderstood regions in 2026. With weaker demographics, higher energy costs, heavier regulation, and a less developed venture capital ecosystem than the US, Europe's growth ceiling remains low. In other words, Europe is unlikely to be the engine of the next cycle.

But Europe's importance lies not in its macro vitality, but in its industrial composition. In a fragmented world, Europe firmly resides within the US bloc. Moreover, in the areas where the new landscape will drive over-investment, Europe still possesses some of the highest quality global companies: power equipment, electrification, grid infrastructure, and industrial automation.

This is also why European stock markets could perform well even if its economy lags: European indices are not just a reflection of 'European demand'. They are significantly composed of global exporters and multinational suppliers that serve capital expenditure cycles occurring worldwide.

Defense: A Step Change in Valuation, Not Simply Momentum Trading

European defense spending has already shifted structurally, and the political consensus for stronger military capabilities is persistent. However, since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, the market has already repriced most of the easily accessible upside, and the conflict itself may gradually enter a lower-intensity phase. This means that European defense opportunities will no longer be broad beta exposure, but should focus on selective bottlenecks: ammunition, security electronics, aerospace components, and maintenance and logistics.

Power Equipment: Europe as the Electrification Backbone of the New Capex Cycle

Where the real incremental opportunity lies is in electrification and the grid. The power systems of the developed world are the underlying constraint behind manufacturing reshoring and AI. The issue is not just generation, but the transmission and distribution equipment that cannot expand fast enough: transformers, switchgear, grid automation, power electronics, high-efficiency motors, and system integration.

European industrial base contains global leaders in these 'shovel' categories. Since they service global capital expenditure, not just European domestic consumption, their earnings can grow even if European GDP growth is mediocre.

Industrial Automation: Europe as Enabler of Productivity Improvement

Manufacturing reshoring and nearshoring are ultimately constrained by labor scarcity and cost. The only way for high-wage developed economies to remain competitive with global manufacturing is through productivity enhancement and automation. Europe remains a leading supplier of factory automation systems, robots, industrial sensors, control software, and precision tools.

Therefore, the correct way to allocate to Europe in 2026 is not as a macro-level 'European recovery' trade, but as a structural composition trade: hold those export-driven industrial and infrastructure leaders benefiting from the global capital expenditure upgrade, while maintaining a more cautious stance on sectors dependent on European domestic demand.

5) AI: The Core Battleground of US-China Competition

If energy is the physical constraint on manufacturing reshoring, then AI is the strategic constraint of the century. It is the most important battleground in US-China competition, as leadership in both countries increasingly views the race to superintelligence as a defining issue.

China started later in the race, took longer—starting later and facing chip embargoes—but the key point is that it has caught up enough to affect the landscape and is now stepping on the accelerator. China's domestic AI capital expenditure previously lagged behind the US, but this gap is narrowing. This ensures AI will remain a target for enormous investment, regardless of short-term commercial returns, because it is increasingly viewed as strategic infrastructure, not just an ordinary industry.

The implications for 2026 are very direct:

AI capital expenditure and national-level coordination will continue to accelerate.

State support and intervention will increase in both blocs.

The AI value chain will undergo structural divergence: the US bloc and the China bloc will each take shape.

Duplication of effort means a larger total investment scale, doubly benefiting the compute, power, network, and manufacturing stack.

Within this framework, AI should be understood broadly—it is not just generative models, but also embodied intelligence, automation, and robotics. 2026 could be a year of accelerated robotics development, with humanoid robots becoming an important narrative and capital expenditure destination.

Ultimately, the economic performance of the application layer may disappoint relative to infrastructure investment—until an inevitable shakeout occurs. But that is more likely a story for 2027-2028. For 2026, the defining characteristic remains investment intensity, not monetization maturity.

6) Portfolio Implications: Rotating Away from Crowded US Large-Cap Tech

This macro landscape also explains why the global nature of our value chain index is so important. US equities, especially US large-cap tech stocks, have become frothy and overly crowded in positioning. Both US domestic households and international investors hold concentrated positions in this sector. Even if the US retains structural strength, when positions are extremely crowded, conditions for sustained momentum become less attractive.

This creates an opportunity: international equities and non-tech stocks are the most thematically logical way to express this outlook. Especially if 2026 becomes a rotation year—its form might resemble the rotation after 2000, although the fundamentals are not identical.

In other words, if geopolitics is reshaping supply chains, if energy is a hard constraint, if defense is becoming regionalized, and if AI capital expenditure remains unstoppable, then the path of least resistance is to hold the beneficiaries of this restructuring globally, rather than continuing to chase the momentum of a handful of US large-cap tech stocks.

Conclusion: One Catalyst, Multiple Expressions

The internal consistency of the 2026 outlook lies in everything tracing back to a single source: a geopolitical change redefining trade, security, energy, and technological competition. The correct framework is not 'growth vs. inflation', nor 'demographics vs. productivity'. The correct framework is: the world is being reorganized into different strategic blocs, supply chain redesign will force capital expenditure higher, drive risk revaluation, and remake winners and losers across different regions and industries.

This has been the core catalyst behind every major structural judgment over the past two years. It will also remain the most important macro perspective for understanding 2026.

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