(Dec 22): Chinese chipmakers are rushing to the IPO market, raising funds that are key to the nation’s goal of technological self-reliance and winning the global race on artificial intelligence.
The surge in listings is coming on the back of two blockbuster trading debuts that signalled insatiable demand for future national champions that analysts say could one day even rival the likes of Nvidia Corp. While some of these firms are already domestic industry leaders, they remain an obscurity to many international investors, making their share sales in Hong Kong a crucial test of confidence.
Earlier this month, AI chipmaker Moore Threads Technology Co saw its stock jump 425% on the first day of trading in Shanghai, followed by the 693% gain for MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai Co’s listing.
“China is catching up very quickly in the chip war. It wouldn’t surprise me if in 2026 or 2027 we have a DeepSeek moment for chips where a low-cost competitive chip is being produced by China,” said Matt Toms, head of cash equity execution for Asia-Pacific at Barclays. “This would be disruptive for Nvidia and their supply chain.”
Toms was referring to the Chinese startup that upended the AI industry earlier this year with low-cost models that offered comparable performance to the world’s best chatbots. Republican lawmakers on a US House committee have recently asked the Pentagon to list a group of firms including DeepSeek as Chinese military companies.
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Here is a list of Chinese AI chip firms seeking stock listings:
Biren Technology
Founded in 2019, Shanghai Biren Technology Co focuses on areas such as graphics processing units and cloud computing and is considered one of the most promising domestic contenders to Nvidia.
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Biren filed its listing documents with Hong Kong’s stock exchange earlier this month, after receiving the Chinese securities regulator’s approval to issue up to 372.5 million new shares there. The AI chipmaker is slated to start gauging investor interest this month for an initial public offering worth around US$600 million.
Biren was added to Washington’s so-called entity list in 2023, which prohibits the sale of US technology without a special licence.
Kunlunxin
Also in the pipeline is internet giant Baidu Inc’s AI chip division known as Kunlunxin, which is considering a listing in Hong Kong.
Kunlunxin, which makes chips that power servers in data centres, is valued at least at US$3 billion. It was created in part to sate Baidu’s enormous appetite for computing power to run its online businesses.
Iluvatar CoreX
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Shanghai Iluvatar CoreX Semiconductor Co. is another potential Chinese competitor for Nvidia. The Centurium Capital-backed firm also has filed listing documents to seek a Hong Kong listing.
The firm is considering an IPO that could raise US$300 million to US$400 million, Bloomberg News reported in August.
Founded in 2015, the company raised 1.2 billion yuan in a funding round in 2021 led by Centurium and Cedarlake Capital. Another round in 2022 included Beijing Financial Street Capital and Hopu and raised one billion yuan.
Enflame Technology
Shanghai Enflame Technology Co, which is seeking an onshore IPO, was founded by former Advanced Micro Devices Inc. employees in 2018. The company is backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd and others including China’s state semiconductor fund.
Bloomberg News reported last year that Enflame was aiming to raise as much as two billion yuan in an IPO on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style STAR board, choosing a venue friendly to loss-making but fast-growth startups.
GigaDevice
GigaDevice Semiconductor Inc. specialises in memory chips and microcontrollers that are widely used in consumer electronics as well as industrial and automotive applications.
Already listed in Shanghai, the chip designer aims to raise as much as US$1 billion in a secondary listing in Hong Kong as early as January.
Montage
Montage Technology Co focuses on memory interface chips, particularly for data centre servers. Similar to GigaDevice, the Shanghai-listed firm is also seeking a secondary listing in Hong Kong to raise as much as US$1 billion as early as January.
Montage’s onshore stock trades at around 44 times forward earnings, below the STAR board’s 51 times and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp’s 126 times.
ChangXin Memory
ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc is China’s leading maker of memory chips. The Hefei-based firm recently said it’s begun to mass-produce an advanced type of chip for mobile devices such as smartphones, becoming the country’s first company to compete in a field dominated by foreign players such as Samsung Electronics Co.
The company is mulling an onshore IPO that would value it as high as 300 billion yuan.
Yangtze Memory
Yangtze Memory Technologies Co is considering an IPO in mainland China at a valuation that could exceed US$40 billion.
Established in Wuhan in 2016, the company focuses on the design and manufacturing of 3D NAND flash memory and is an advanced memory solutions provider.
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