It’s a good time to be a Chinese chip company, at least if you are looking to raise money on the stock markets.
A mini-flurry of chip company listings is underway in China, with investors keen to back firms whose success is central to the government’s economic vision. Moore Threads, a graphic processing units developer founded in 2020, raised over $1.1 billion in its initial public offering in Shanghai’s STAR market on December 5. MetaX, which also develops GPUs, followed suit on December 17, raising nearly $600 million in its IPO.
Moore Threads is one of the biggest listings in the past 15 years:
More chip companies are in the pipeline for an IPO in 2026, according to various media reports, including Biren Technology, Baidu’s Kunlunxin, and Shanghai Iluvatar CoreX Semiconductor. GigaDevice Semiconductor, which already listed in Shanghai in 2016; and Montage Technology, which listed in Shanghai in 2019, are also considering listing in Hong Kong.
2025 was not the biggest year for chip company listings in China, but what is notable is that relaxed market rules allowed some innovative companies to go public before they had recorded an annual profit. Technological self-reliance in key technologies is a priority for Beijing over the next five years, and the new guidelines offer increased funding avenues for strategically well-placed firms — with semiconductor companies a clear choice for investors.
Over the past fifteen years, nearly 300 chip companies have listed in China and Hong Kong, with a total deal value of over $62 billion. 2022 was the largest year for semiconductor listings, with some $12.7 billion raised from 43 primary and secondary listings.
On the heels of going public, Moore Threads launched new products at its inaugural MUSA Developer Conference held in Beijing December 19-20, a forum named after its own meta-computing unified system architecture (MUSA). Chief executive Jianzhong Zhang unveiled new GPU chips and architecture, promising significant improvements in compute and memory. As for the money raised in the IPO, the company is putting it in the bank. Filings show that the company will put RMB 7.5 billion — about 90 percent of the IPO proceeds — of “idle funds” into investments under a cash management scheme.
Other chip firms are putting their new funds into research. Cambricon, which raised $369 million in its July 2020 IPO, has since doubled down on research and development. The company’s 2024 annual report shows that more than 90 percent of its operating revenue was spent on R&D, an undertaking which employs some three-quarters of the company’s staff.
According to an announcement filed with the Hong Kong stock exchange, Biren Technology will invest funds from an eventual listing in developing its intelligent computing hardware and software systems, upgrading existing chips such as the BR20X and BR30X, and recruiting new engineers.
GigaDevice Semiconductor’s mid-year report states the firm will likewise be putting funds from its latest Hong Kong listing into R&D, industrial-related investments and acquisitions, and global marketing, following the establishment of international headquarters in Singapore in June 2025.
Savannah Billman is a Staff Writer for The Wire China based in NYC. She previously worked at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
