Demand for OpenClaw in China is driving up the price of secondhand MacBooks

BEIJING — So many people in China are rushing to try the OpenClaw artificial intelligence tool that they’re driving up prices for secondhand Mac computers.

According to Jeremy Gee, Chief Strategy Officer and General Manager of International Business ATR is newWorks with used consumer electronics buyers and resellers Apple and retailer JD.com In mainland China.

OpenClaw is an AI agent that can autonomously perform personal tasks such as sending emails and shopping online. According to American cybersecurity firm Security Scorecard, usage in China currently surpasses that of the US.

However, free-to-download software also poses security risks, prompting many users to run OpenClaw on a cloud computing server or laptop separately from their primary device. If direct access to a personal computer is allowed, an AI agent can autonomously alter private data such as banking information or enable hackers to access it easily.

As Chinese people jump on the OpenClaw trend, they’re turning to pre-owned computers, Gfone said in an interview.

He likened the surge in demand to an epidemic, when many people bought more personal computing devices as they worked and spent more time at home.

As a result, from March to May this year, ATRenew is keeping its prices for Apple products similar to those seen during the peak fall period during new iPhone releases, Ji said. This contrasts with the typical price drop in the spring.

Prices for new MacBooks are typically 15% higher than those sold through ATRenew, Gee said.

Apple’s self-developed chips, the latest of which is called the M5, are generally more power-efficient than chips for computers running Windows systems. For early OpenClaw adopters, Apple’s Mac Mini is a popular hardware of choice.

ATRenew’s Ji said the company is seeing people trade in their MacBooks with older M1 and M2 chips for computers with an M4 or M5 chip. “We see overall increasing demand for laptops, PCs, but Mac devices will benefit most from that trend (to try OpenClaw).”

Consumer interest in more powerful secondhand MacBooks is “still very strong,” Gee said, adding that ATRenew has had to raise its prices to buy back devices to increase the supply of secondhand Macs available for purchase. He predicted the trend could continue “throughout the year.”

Austrian developer Peter Steinberger launched OpenClaw in November. But the latest wave of interest in China only picked up earlier this month Tencent And other Chinese tech companies used OpenClaw as a way to attract more users.

ATRenew’s Ji declined to share the exact volume of MacBooks handled since late February, but noted that the average number of devices the company processed last year was about 100,000 per day. He expects the share of MacBook and other laptop or personal computing devices to grow to 15% to 20% of the business now.

Jensen Huang, CEO of the US chip giant NvidiaOpenClaw is “definitely the next ChatGPT,” he told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday.

“It’s now the biggest, most popular, most successful open source project in the history of humanity,” Huang said.

The overall demand for AI computing power has driven up the prices of memory chips, a key component of smartphones and laptops.

Ji said that chip price hikes in China in particular have encouraged more consumers to buy used Apple smartphones rather than flagship Android-based devices.