AI's "Execution Era": How a Lobster Ignited a Nationwide Frenzy
In March 2026, nearly a thousand people queued up outside the Tencent Building in Shenzhen.$TENCENT(00700.HK)
They weren't there to collect free eggs; they were waiting to attend an “OpenClaw Installation Tutorial.” On-site engineers set up tables, helping users deploy this “lobster” from Austria, one device after another.
This “lobster” is sweeping across China at an astonishing speed. Its GitHub stars have surpassed 270,000, topping the global open-source charts. The price of second-hand Mac minis has doubled, and on-site installation has become a new business. Tutorials on “raising the lobster” on Xiaohongshu have garnered over 100 million views.$Apple(AAPL.US)
A nationwide “lobster-raising” movement is underway.
1. What is the Lobster?
At its core, OpenClaw gives AI “hands” and “feet.”
Before this, AI was just a brain—it could talk, but not act. OpenClaw is different: it runs locally, receives instructions via WeChat or command line, and then directly operates your mouse, keyboard, and file system, completing tasks step by step:
“Help me organize the download folder.”
“Log into Xiaohongshu and post this note.”
“Compare the prices of several products and generate a table.”
The large language model is the brain, and OpenClaw is the pair of hands. The brain devises the plan, and the hands execute it.
2. How Did the Lobster Become a Sensation?
The story began in Vienna in November 2025. Retired programmer Peter Steinberg, out of boredom, wrote a script to let AI work via WhatsApp and casually uploaded it to GitHub.
In January 2026, traffic began to surge. Developers discovered this magical tool that actually made AI work. The Discord community rapidly expanded. Due to a name conflict with Claude, the project team hastily renamed it overnight, finally settling on OpenClaw, and the red lobster icon was born.
The real explosion happened in China.
Just before the Spring Festival, “Have you raised your lobster yet?” started circulating. GitHub stars jumped from tens of thousands to 270,000. Second-hand Mac minis were snapped up—one product manager bought eight at once, each running a different agent, working in 24-hour shifts.
On-site installation fees, ranging from 300 to 1,000 yuan per session, gave rise to a new industry chain. Baidu$Baidu(BIDU.US) , Alibaba$BABA-W(09988.HK) , and Tencent quickly integrated it. Shenzhen's Longgang District issued the “Ten Lobster Policies,” followed by Wuxi and Suzhou.
A casual remark by a National People's Congress delegate pushed the hype to its peak: “Everyone is so anxious now, afraid they haven't raised a ‘lobster.’”
3. What Does the Lobster Mean for the AI World?
Behind this frenzy lies a more fundamental judgment: AI is transitioning from the “Era of Conversation” to the “Era of Execution.” Previously, AI “generated content”; now, AI “generates action.” Futian District's “Government Affairs Lobster” in Shenzhen reviews a day's worth of materials in minutes. Entrepreneurs in Zhongguancun use the lobster for automated marketing, with one person running an entire company—the rise of the “one-person company.”
Spring has arrived for AI applications. Tencent is planning to officially integrate OpenClaw into the QQ and WeChat ecosystems. This means agents will reach billions of users, and those software companies whose valuations have been suppressed in the capital markets are finally returning to their comfort zone. When AI can not only chat but also work for you within super-apps, the value of software with core channels and customer recognition will be redefined.
Computing power demand will grow exponentially. Every task execution is backed by massive inference calls. Token consumption leaps from the millions to the hundreds of millions. Cloud providers and AI infrastructure become the most certain “shovel sellers.” No matter how the lobster evolves, computing power will always be a rigid demand. From conversation to execution, every evolution of AI relies on underlying computing power support—NVIDIA's$NVIDIA(NVDA.US) chips, Broadcom's$Broadcom(AVGO.US) switches, Microsoft's$Microsoft(MSFT.US) cloud, Tencent's ecosystem. They are the “shovel sellers” that never sleep.
4. When AI Starts Taking Action, How Should We Seize It?
The viral success of OpenClaw is a microcosm: AI is penetrating at an unimaginable speed. Rather than chasing every viral “lobster,” it's better to allocate capital to the core assets supporting the AI era.
E Fund (Hong Kong) FTSE Artificial Intelligence Index ETF（3489）$EFUND AI(03489.HK) covers 50 leading AI companies from both China and the US with one click, from computing power to applications to models, encapsulating this vast sea into a single ticker.
You can raise a lobster, but more importantly—don't miss the ocean.
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