Meanwhile, price gains extended to consumer electronics as China"s industrial upgrading gathered pace, with tablet, computer and mobile phone prices rising 21.5 percent, 19.6 percent and 11 percent year-on-year, respectively, all faster than in July, NBS data showed.

　　Feng attributed much of the increases to a surge in chip prices fueled by the global artificial intelligence investment boom. Feng estimated that the three categories together added about 0.38 percentage points to year-on-year CPI growth, making them "another key driver of the broader pickup in inflation" in August.

　　Su Jian, director of the National Center for Economic Research at Peking University, also struck an optimistic note. "The data point to continued structural upgrading of the economy in August, with high-tech industries expanding rapidly and demand in related end markets remaining robust," he said.

　　Despite the broader pickup in prices, weakness persisted in some categories. Food prices fell 1.4 percent year-on-year in August, while rental housing costs were down 0.6 percent from a year earlier for a fifth consecutive month, NBS data showed.

　　"Consumer prices remain under pressure," said Lynn Song, chief economist for China at Dutch bank ING, pointing to food and housing — which account for about 30 percent and 22 percent of the CPI basket, respectively — as persistent drags on China"s reflation in recent months.

　　The growth in core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is deemed a better gauge of the supply-demand relationship in the economy, edged up to 1.0 percent year-on-year from 0.9 percent in July.

　　"The reading remains relatively low, giving policymakers considerable room to step up support for consumption and countercyclical adjustment, including interest rate cuts by the central bank," said Feng of Orient Golden Credit Rating International.