Listed insurance companies' computing power "arms race" heats up, and AI is no longer just a cost-reduction tool

In recent times, listed insurers have been rolling out their annual reports in quick succession. China Life, Ping An, China Pacific Insurance, PICC, New China Life, China Taiping, Sun Life Insurance, and other leading insurers have all delivered their 2025 performance reports.

As you go through the annual reports, “digital and intelligent transformation” has evolved from a slogan into tangible operational investment. AI is being threaded through strategic planning, foundational infrastructure, business scenarios, and value growth, becoming the core main line for reshaping the industry’s competitive logic. However, on the other side of this transformational coin is a real-world trade-off between capital outlays on compute power infrastructure—backed by hard cash—and long-term returns that have yet to fully materialize. When the AI arms race is already heating up, what each insurer needs to answer is not only how to move faster, but also how to find a sustainable rhythm in the ongoing game between investment and payoff.

This is a high-stakes gamble on the future, and the chips have already been put on the table.

AI shifts from “multiple-choice questions” to “mandatory answers”

The 2025 annual reports show that many leading insurers have increased the strategic weight of AI in top-level design, treating it as the core driver of future growth.

At a performance briefing, jointly CEO of Ping An, Guo Xiaotao, said clearly: “AI isn’t a multiple-choice question—it’s a mandatory answer.” Ping An Group is advancing its “integrated finance, nine-to-one” plan, aiming to use AI to integrate more than 700 million internet registered users into a unified super portal, achieving comprehensive aggregation of traffic, entry points, and backend data, so that customers can complete a closed loop of healthcare, retirement, and integrated financial services within a one-stop portal.

China Pacific Insurance has also listed “AI+” as one of its three major strategies for the future. In a low-interest-rate environment, the traditional profit model that relies heavily on the interest-rate spread urgently needs to change, and competition in the industry is shifting from incremental dividend battles to fights over existing market share. At a performance briefing, chairman Fu Fan said that during the “15th Five-Year Plan and 5 more years” period, it will focus efforts to implement three major strategies: “a major health and elder care,” “internationalization,” and “artificial intelligence+.” Among them, the “AI+” strategy will target core business scenarios, promote large-scale application of AI technologies, enhance efficiency and effectiveness, drive reengineering of business processes, optimize customer experience, and foster innovation in service models.

PICC and China Life are also showing a posture of competing for the commanding heights of AI. At a performance briefing, Ding Xiangqun, chairman of PICC Group, explicitly positioned the technology line as an “accelerator,” saying it is necessary to “more proactively seize opportunities in the development of artificial intelligence, deepen reform of the technology system and digital initiatives, accelerate the release of technology productive forces, and seize the commanding heights of digital and intelligent transformation.” In 2025, PICC Group’s AI deployed application scenarios grew year over year by 79%.

Meanwhile, Cai Xiliang, chairman of China Life, has listed the “technology dividend” as one of the four key dividends over the next five years, saying it will “forge future-oriented digital and intelligent capabilities, and drive upgrades to management, products, and business models through digital and intelligent transformation.” In 2026, China Life has proactively laid out 14 reform projects, treating digital and intelligent transformation as a strategic focus.

This strategic shift is also directly reflected in the talent market—during the spring 2026 hiring season, the “AI content” in the insurance industry has surged significantly. Among the 4,500 open positions at Ping An, the share of technology and artificial intelligence roles is close to 30%; PICC has added a large number of artificial intelligence development and data security offense-and-defense positions. Sun Life Insurance has also made robot engineering and data engineering key areas in its hiring priorities.

Compute power infrastructure and data platforms become the focus of investment

Behind the strategic upgrades is investment in compute power backed by hard cash. Annual report data show that leading institutions are stepping up investment in foundational infrastructure such as data centers, hybrid cloud platforms, and large-model training, pushing deeper progress from the application layer toward the hardware layer and infrastructure layer.

Ping An has already formed a substantial scale in compute power and data accumulation. The annual report shows that Ping An has, through industry-leading databases built internally, accumulated more than 3.2 trillion high-quality text corpora and 8.5 billion image corpora, supporting precise operations for 251 million individual customers. In 2025, the intelligent agent applications developed by Ping An employees exceeded 70,000, and the total number of model calls reached 3.65 billion times over the year.

China Life and PICC have continued to put efforts into data centers and algorithm engineering. Through its “Digital China Life” strategy, China Life has built a digital platform based on hybrid cloud, establishing a data space of “billion-level data—ten-thousands of features—hundreds of dimensional tags.” PICC is also optimizing its compute power layout, advancing the orderly construction of data centers in the western region, and its North Information Center has obtained national certification for green compute infrastructure. Through its self-developed insurance-sector vertical large model “PICC Chenling,” the accuracy rate of scenario-intent understanding has exceeded 99%.

New China Life and China Taiping have likewise achieved leaps in foundational infrastructure. New China Life deployed the nation’s first batch of data centers in 2025; the floor area of its server rooms rose to 27,000 square meters, with core support capabilities increasing by nearly 4 times. China Taiping, meanwhile, has essentially achieved full-chain coverage—from compute power infrastructure to business empowerment—launched the “AI Enjoyment” series of products, and rolled out 50 application scenarios.

Technology investment becomes the driving force for core performance growth

The ultimate effectiveness of technology investment is directly reflected in business growth and value creation. In 2025, multiple listed insurers empowered core business operations through digital and intelligent means, achieving a quality leap from “scale expansion” to “value creation.”

Against the backdrop of fluctuations in industry headcount scale, insurers are using tools such as AI consultants and digital employees to sink resources to the front line, expanding the service radius of agents.

The “Six Armies” intelligent application system developed by China Pacific Life uses AI scenario drills to increase agent productivity by 15.7%. For users who frequently use the “Smart Customer Operations Assistant,” the 30-day conversion rate improved by 1.23 times. In 2025, the new business value of China Pacific Life reached RMB 18.609 billion, up 40.1% year over year, and the new business value margin increased by 3.2 percentage points.

Through “human + AI” collaboration, Ping An empowers agents to transition into professional retirement care managers, significantly improving customer retention rates. In 2025, the new business value of life insurance and health insurance grew by 29.3% year over year, and the average new business value growth for agents’ channels was 17.2%.

In 2025, Sun Life’s new business value reached RMB 7.64 billion, up 48.2% year over year. By optimizing the sales and claims experience through its “robot engineering,” it helped push the total premium scale onto a 100-billion-yuan platform.

On the operations side, the efficiency improvements brought by digital and intelligent transformation have clearly optimized insurers’ cost structures. In 2025, New China Life achieved attributable net profit of RMB 36.284 billion, up 38.3% year over year. It rolled out intelligent risk warnings in claims review; the rate of services completed within 1 minute for policy maintenance reached 96%. China Life’s intelligent claims service also exceeded 75% in the share of claim cases; more than 5.3 million one-stop claim direct-pay cases were processed.

The other side of AI investment: cost pressure and return cycle

However, not all investments can quickly pay off. The annual reports also implicitly reflect significant cost pressure—data center construction and the introduction of high-end AI talent are becoming new “money-eaters” that are swallowing profit.

From the perspective of capital expenditure, New China Life’s server-room area rose from 7,000 square meters to 27,000 square meters, with core support capability increasing by nearly 4 times. Such infrastructure expansion implies a substantial increase in current-period capital spending. China Pacific Insurance has also stated clearly that this year’s AI investment will be double last year’s, and its compounded annual growth rate for the investment budget over the next two years will be no less than 40%.

From the perspective of talent costs, in Ping An’s spring 2026 hiring of 4,500 positions, the share of technology roles is close to 30%. PICC has added a large number of artificial intelligence development positions—compensation levels for high-end AI talent are far higher than those for traditional finance practitioners, which will continue to drive up labor costs. From depreciation and amortization, large-scale investment in compute power infrastructure will be converted into depreciation expenses over the coming years, exerting ongoing pressure on profits.

What is even harder to measure is the investment-to-output cycle. Building AI capabilities follows the rule of “high input, long cycle, and non-linear returns”—massive upfront investment is required for compute power platforms, data governance, and model training, while the release of business value often requires several years of iteration and fine-tuning. How to balance short-term investment with long-term output will be a common exam question for all insurers under their “AI+” strategies.

The industry’s transformation is not a wave that passes overnight, but a set of measures carried out step by step, steadily, and with far-reaching impact. Deloitte’s “Global Insurance Industry Outlook 2026” points out that data quality, system modernization, and security assurance are success factors for AI. Looking ahead to 2026, insurers should further strengthen the digital foundation, improve the quality of investment data, advance talent strategy transformation, integrate digital and human service touchpoints, and carry out proactive risk management. A research report from CITIC Securities notes that AI applications are entering a moment of a singularity; in the future, AI effectiveness will be concentrated in dimensions such as efficiency improvements, value creation, and deep decision-making.

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