How long can the "Lobster Fever" last? The risks and opportunities of AI agents reshaping the software industry

ZTE (中兴通讯) moves agents from lab to ledger

ZTE (中兴通讯) used its 2026 China ecosystem partners conference in Beijing to push a clear message: AI is no longer just about bigger foundation models — it's about turning agents into trusted, enterprise-grade workers. The company unveiled the Co‑Claw AI appliance and a new “Hehe” ecosystem alliance, positioning itself to capture government and enterprise digital transformation demand as Western giants continue to pour money into base models. But can the current frenzy around agent tooling — the so‑called "Lobster Fever" — survive the hard questions enterprises always ask: who is accountable, how is data protected, and will costs scale?

Infrastructure bet underpins the pitch

ZTE reported that its 2025 revenue has re-entered a rapid growth trajectory, with its compute business up roughly 150% year‑on‑year and accounting for about 24.6% of total revenue — a shift that underlines the company’s strategic pivot to “connectivity + compute.” To back enterprise agent deployments it launched an OEX ultra‑node, backplane‑free interconnect supporting elastic scaling to 16,384 compute nodes, plus a 576×800G switch and a cross‑domain Scale‑Across solution leveraging self‑developed optical modules and OTN equipment. It has been reported that ZTE claims materially lower total cost of ownership at comparable scales. Geopolitics matters here: US export controls and broader trade frictions have accelerated Chinese vendors’ focus on domestic compute stacks and government/regulatory customers.

Agents: from research demos to managed digital employees

The centerpiece for agent adoption is Co‑Claw — a turnkey appliance ZTE says simplifies deployment, integrates with enterprise suites such as Feishu (飞书) and DingTalk (钉钉), and enforces “data never leaves domain” security guarantees. OpenClaw, an open‑source tool, has reportedly excited the developer community, but ZTE executives argue hobbyist models won’t satisfy enterprises. “OpenClaw… when enterprises ask, ‘How do thousands of our people use this? Will data leak? Who is responsible when it fails?’ — the ‘personal freedom mode’ no longer applies,” said Chief Development Officer Cui Li (崔丽). Co‑Claw is pitched to solve those questions with one‑click deployment, unified visual ops, and controls designed to ease token and cost anxieties.

Ecosystem incentives and lingering risks

ZTE announced partner incentives and said it expects about 60% of AI project opportunities this year to come from partners and joint go‑to‑market efforts, with channel rebates increasing around 30% — a clear attempt to build an open, resilient government/enterprise ecosystem. But risks remain: enterprise procurement cycles, compliance demands, supply‑chain limits on advanced chips, and operational accountability will determine whether agents become ubiquitous productivity multipliers or a short‑lived developer fad. Will customers prefer turnkey, controllable digital employees over experimental, free‑form tools? The answer will decide how long the Lobster Fever lasts.