A concept picture of chip Photo: VCG

Recently, a number of China's domestic general-purpose graphics processing unit (GPU) chip companies have ramped up steps to list on the stock market, with Iluvatar CoreX becoming the latest example by passing the hearing with the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the Star Market Daily reported on Friday.

Chinese experts said that with support from national strategies, Chinese GPU chip companies are making continuous technological breakthroughs and pursuing listings to meet financing needs - a clear sign of the immense market potential in China's homegrown GPU sector amid the rapid growth of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.

According to the Star Market Daily, Iluvatar CoreX is a leading domestic general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) manufacturer. In 2021, the company released the country's first GPGPU product, the Tiangai 100. In 2022, it launched products targeted at AI. In 2022, cumulative sales orders for the Tiangai 100 series exceeded 500 million yuan ($71.0 million).

Biren Technology has also just passed the HKEX listing hearing, the Securities Times reported on Wednesday. The company develops GPGPU chips and GPGPU-based intelligent computing solutions, providing computing power support for AI. Its technology delivers strong performance and high energy efficiency in the pre-training, post-training, and inference stages of large language models, according to the report.

Another Chinese GPU maker, MetaX, debuted on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Wednesday, with its share price surging by 692.95 percent on the day. Earlier on December 5, Chinese AI chipmaker Moore Threads surged by 425 percent to reach 600.5 yuan per share on its first trading day on the STAR Market. 

"Domestic GPU companies have made substantial progress in areas such as hardware architecture and software ecosystems, with product performance gradually approaching international levels, providing strong technical support for their listings," Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday.

Wang said that the recent progress also reflects the domestic substitution needs. "The global GPU market has long been monopolized by international giants. Against the backdrop of intensifying geopolitical frictions, ensuring independent and controllable industrial chains has become a national priority, ushering in a window of development opportunity for domestic GPU companies," the expert said.

"Moreover, with national policies supporting the integrated circuit industry and a sharp increase in demand for high-performance GPUs in areas like AI, listing on the stock market has become a key avenue for these companies to obtain stable and sustained funding," Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told the Global Times on Friday.

These companies have generated huge interest among investors. Shares of Moore Threads have been oversubscribed more than 4,000 times by retail investors, while the final online lottery rate of MetaX stayed at 0.033 percent, according to media reports.

Wang noted that the Chinese AI chip market continues to expand in scale, with domestic GPU manufacturers as core beneficiaries, so investors are optimistic about their potential.

A report from the China Commercial Industry Research Institute in 2024 said that China's GPU market size was expected to reach 107.3 billion yuan that year, up 32.96 percent year-on-year, and then reach 120 billion yuan in 2025. 

With strong government support and the continued maturation of key technologies across the Chinese AI industry chain, the process of domestic GPU substitution is expected to accelerate, Wang noted.

Analysts also noted that listing on the stock market brings mutual benefits and positive impetus to both tech companies and the capital market.

"With access to financing through going public, GPU companies can invest in research and development, speeding up technological development and market expansion," Pan said.

In addition, the listings of China's homegrown GPU firms are injecting fresh momentum into the capital market, creating flagship listings in the "AI computing power + semiconductor" segment, Wang noted.