Shares of Shanghai Biren Technology Co. jumped almost 76% in their trading debut on Friday, marking the best first-day performance since early 2021 among Hong Kong listings that raised at least $700 million.
The artificial intelligence chip designer’s stock finished at 34.46 Hong Kong dollars after an initial public offering that was priced at 19.60 Hong Kong dollars, the top of an indicative range. Strong investor demand helped the company raise $717 million through the IPO, with its retail portion subscribed more than 2,300 times.
The developer of graphics processing units used to train and run AI models made its debut amid a wave of blockbuster Chinese listings in the sector, which has emerged as one of hottest themes in global equity markets. Apart from the surging investor interest in all things AI, China’s push to support homegrown technology has also boosted sentiment.
Shanghai Biren’s strong start will likely augur well for two other AI-related stocks—MiniMax Group Inc. and Knowledge Atlas Technology JSC Ltd., better known as Zhipu—that are set to list in the Asian financial hub next week. Separately, Baidu Inc.’s AI chip unit confidentially filed for a Hong Kong IPO on Friday.
As the first GPU-focused stock to list in Hong Kong, Shanghai Biren “enjoys scarcity value and high market attention,” according to Kenny Ng, a strategist at China Everbright Securities International Co. “The industry is in a flourishing stage, with many firms striving for breakthroughs and significant growth potential.”
Shanghai Biren’s stock soared nearly 119% intraday before paring gains. Even so, the first-day performance at close was the best since Kuaishou Technology’s shares surged 161% in their trading debut in early 2021. That’s taking into account Hong Kong listings that raised $700 million or more.
Broadly, listings of this size in the financial hub between 2020 to 2025 generated a weighted-average gain of nearly 23% on their first day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, debuts by Chinese chipmakers this year on the mainland have been far more impressive.
Last month in Shanghai, MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai Co. soared 693% on its first day of trading, tracking Moore Threads Technology Co.’s stellar debut earlier. The firms, including Shanghai Biren, are part of China’s “Four Little Dragons” in the GPU space—seen as contenders to pick up market share left by Nvidia Corp.’s retreat.
Founded in 2019 by Zhang Wen, former president of SenseTime Group Inc., Shanghai Biren has been gaining traction among major Chinese firms. In 2022, it claimed “setting a new record in global computing power” with its first general-purpose GPU.
A major setback came just a year later when the firm was added to a U.S. trade restriction list requiring exporters obtain a government license before shipping to Biren. Washington argued its chip curbs are necessary to keep advanced technology out of China’s military hands.
In its prospectus, Shanghai Biren said that proceeds from the offering will be used toward research and development of its computing solutions. The company posted a 1.6 billion yuan ($228.9 million) net loss in the first six months of the year.
China’s ambitions to grow its at-home chips sector have accelerated this year in a bid to reduce its reliance on foreign players given increasing trade tensions. Officials are now considering a package of incentives worth as much as $70 billion to bankroll the sector.
DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup that stunned the industry with its R1 reasoning model a year ago, this week published a paper outlining a more efficient approach to developing AI, illustrating Chinese efforts to compete with the likes of OpenAI despite a lack of free access to Nvidia chips. Such publications from DeepSeek have foreshadowed the release of major models in the past.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
