Abstract: Computing infrastructure, as the core vehicle for providing computing resources and unlocking the value of data elements, has injected strong momentum into stabilizing corporate expectations. Existing studies have predominantly focused on the “expectation-stabilizing” effects of government macroeconomic regulation on firms, with relatively little attention paid to the underlying mechanisms through which computing infrastructure empowers corporate expectations. This study employs the operational launch of national supercomputing centers as a natural experiment. Within the theoretical framework of infrastructure externalities, it systematically examines the impact of computing power infrastructure on corporate expectations and its underlying mechanisms, based on a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2023. Research has found that computing power infrastructure can inject “certainty” into enterprise development, enhancing businesses’ positive expectations for future growth. Mechanism analysis indicates that computing power infrastructure achieves a “stabilizing expectations” effect for enterprises through three pathways: alleviating financing constraints, reducing transaction costs, and enhancing supply chain efficiency. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the positive impact of computing infrastructure on corporate expectations is more pronounced when firms exhibit weaker risk-bearing capacity, receive higher levels of government subsidies, and are located in regions designated as computing hub nodes. Extended analysis reveals that the “stabilizing expectations” effect of computing infrastructure on enterprises further expands corporate investment scale and improves production efficiency, thereby playing a role in “stabilizing growth”. However, this effect does not exhibit significant spatial spillover or siphoning effects at the geographical level. This paper reveals the positive externalities of computing power infrastructure from the perspective of stabilizing corporate expectations, offering valuable policy insights for addressing the challenge of weakening corporate expectations in the digital economy era.

Key words: computing infrastructure, supercomputing center, corporate expectations, stabilize expectations