The 2026 "China Equity Investment Industry Investment Institutions" series roster is officially released

Alpha will be made, not found. McKinsey made a precise judgment in its global private market report released in early 2026. Alpha (excess returns) is no longer found, but made. Continuingly low interest rates, ever-expanding valuation multiples, and readily available cheap financing—these old levers that amplified profits—have disappeared one by one over the past decade. As a result, global closed-end PE fundraising will decline by 17% year-on-year in 2025, and the decline in the Asia-Pacific region will be nearly half. The story in the Chinese market is more complicated. The source of money has changed. After the decline of US dollar funds, state-owned assets and industrial capital took over the pricing power and the writing of the rules of the game. The exit channel has also changed. The "diversified exit strategy" in the PPT has become a real transaction (at least a new skill that some GPs have to learn). At the same time, the main plot changed. The narrative about artificial intelligence in the primary market has quietly completed a logical change. In 2025, embodied intelligence alone will attract more than 65.6 billion yuan in financing, with nearly a thousand companies pouring into it. In the longer term, the proportion of hard technology in VC investment has climbed from 38% to 62% in five years. There is no doubt that the focus of capital is moving downstream along the technology stack. AI is no longer just one of many tracks. It is cutting into the capillaries of almost all industries in an almost irreversible way. The old order has loosened, but the new order has not yet settled. In the past year, we have seen some new institutions that grew up from the hinterland of the industry complete the fundraising and deployment of the first phase of funds at an unexpected speed. They do not tell grand narratives, but only do things they understand, and instead win the trust of the market. We have also seen some established institutions complete a sharp cognitive turn in the face of AI, re-understanding what the industrial resources they have accumulated over the past decade mean under the new paradigm. Of course, some once-familiar names are becoming quieter. Silence does not mean out, but the market's attention is honest. This intermediate state is more testing than a simple cold winter. What is certain is that time no longer automatically stands in any