JPM: China Tech & APAC Internet - China AI Application Forum takeaways, Trip.com results, Update on PCB

This specialist sales note summarizes takeaways from the China AI Application Forum, Trip.com's results and an update on China PCB. At the AI Application Forum (meetings with BABA, Zhipu, JD, SenseTime, Xunce and Phancy), the message was consistent: nobody is slowing down and regulation is being framed as an enabler. Near-term the bottleneck remains compute, pinning model players to CSPs, while longer-term pricing power should follow SOTA model capability. Capex is broadly accepted as necessary, but ROIC sustainability is still debated; open-source model revenue share with CSPs could formalize by year-end, adding an ARR lever for top-tier models and turning CSP cloud revenue to net recognition. Trip.com's print pushed the domestic hotel monetization reset out to 4Q26-1Q27, later and deeper than expected, yet the feared 10-15% headline take-rate cut is above its ~9% effective 2025 group commission;