'Raise a lobster' craze: OpenClaw's meteoric rise transforms China's tech landscape

China is experiencing a tech sensation with the rapid rise of OpenClaw — an open-source artificial intelligence agent that automates everyday tasks such as email processing, schedule management, and travel booking — and sparking the popular “raise a lobster” AI trend across the country.

The surge in its popularity has sent shares of several Chinese cloud computing firms, including UCloud, Albatron, and Hangzhou Shunwang Technology, soaring nearly 20 percent in the A-share market on Monday.

Nearly 1,000 people were seen queuing up outside a technology giant’s headquarters in Shenzhen last Friday for free technical assistance in installing OpenClaw on their devices.

OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger said the AI agent’s adoption in China has reached unprecedented levels. It has also surpassed Linux on GitHub’s all-time star leaderboard recently, highlighting its meteoric rise in the developer community.

Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang hailed OpenClaw as “the most important software release of our times. Probably the biggest phenomenon that’s happening.

In response to OpenClaw’s rapid growth, the Wuxi High-tech Zone has rolled out 12 policies to support the platform’s development, offering incentives of up to 5 million yuan (about HK$5.7 million). Shenzhen’s Longgang district has also sought public input on proposals, with rewards for deep application reaching up to 2 million yuan (about HK$2.3 million).

However, the rapid expansion of OpenClaw has raised concerns. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently issued a security alert cautioning that improper deployment could leave systems exposed to cyberattacks and data breaches. Meta AI researcher Summer Yue reported that the agent indiscriminately wiped her inbox during testing.