Chinese AI chipmaker MetaX shares jump nearly 600% in market debut
"It will likely benefit from China's continuous push to replace foreign suppliers using indigenous technology."
MetaX, which controls 1% of China's AI chip market, projects the company's sales to more than double this year due to the tech self-reliance drive, and expects to break even as early as next year.
CHINESE AI CHIPMAKERS RUSH FOR IPOS
MetaX's market debut comes after Moore Threads (688795.SS), dubbed by analysts as "China's Nvidia", raised $1.1 billion in its Shanghai IPO in late November.
On Monday, AI chip startup Biren Technology won regulatory approval to sell shares publicly in Hong Kong, while rival Kunlunxin also plans an IPO in the city. Another AI chipmaker, Enflame, has hired Citic Securities to prepare for a flotation.
"Chinese policymakers are greenlighting IPOs for AI chipmakers to support home-grown advanced technology," said fund manager Yuan Yuwei at Trinity Synergy Investments in Hong Kong.
"Domestic chipmakers lag U.S. rivals, but if they can raise tens or hundreds of billions to spend on talent, you cannot rule out their breakthrough."
IPO fundraising in China jumped 23% in 2025 from a year earlier to exceed 160 billion yuan, according to KPMG, with 23% of the proceeds going to the technology, media and telecom sector.
SIGNIFICANT TECHNOLOGY GAP
MetaX flagged a number of risk factors in its IPO prospectus, including supply chain disruption from U.S. technology restrictions as well as its significant technology gap with Nvidia and AMD.
Nvidia is considering adding production capacity for its H200 AI chips due to strong orders from Chinese clients, after U.S. President Donald Trump this month greenlighted export of Nvidia's second-fastest AI chips to China.
In the home GPU market, MetaX competes with Moore Threads as well as Hygon Information Technology and Biren.
In the so-called ASIC chip business, it competes with Cambricon, Huawei Technologies' HiSilicon, Baidu's Kunlunxin and Alibaba Group's T-Head.
"MetaX's technology lags Moore Threads, and it faces stiff competition from Huawei and Alibaba," said Yuan of Trinity Synergy Investments.
There will be room to improve, "but under the current circumstances, there's definitely froth in its share price."
($1 = 7.0458 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee, Christopher Cushing and Thomas Derpinghaus)
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