Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited disclosed its semi-annual report for 2026 on Friday, presenting a strong financial performance.
During the reporting period, the company achieved impressive results: total operating revenue reached 5.996 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 108.13%, effectively doubling. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company stood at 2.311 billion yuan, up 122.61% year-on-year. After deducting non-recurring gains and losses, net profit was 2.166 billion yuan, a 137.30% increase, indicating improved earnings quality. This marks the first time Cambricon has surpassed the 5 billion yuan revenue threshold for a single half-year period since its listing, signaling a transition from a technology accumulation phase into a commercial scaling phase.
Financial and Internet Sectors Drive Revenue Surge
During the period, revenue growth was primarily fueled by the financial and internet sectors. Cambricon deepened its collaboration with core financial institutions, providing computing power for large model training and inference to optimize operations and enhance service efficiency. In the internet sector, the company focused on large models, multimodal capabilities, and search recommendations, expanding into scaled training scenarios. Additionally, progress was made in verticals like smart cities, smart mining, and smart retail, with new customers in the retail sector for applications such as foot traffic analysis and theft prevention. However, these sectors contribute a relatively limited volume to overall revenue in the short term, with the financial and internet industries remaining the primary drivers.
It is noteworthy that the company's inventory book value reached approximately 8.248 billion yuan, accounting for 45.32% of total assets. This is a high proportion for a chip design company, and if market conditions or customer demand fluctuate, the risk of inventory write-downs cannot be ignored, a factor the company has highlighted in its risk disclosures.
R&D Spending Rises in Absolute Terms but Declines as a Share of Revenue
During the reporting period, Cambricon's R&D investment was approximately 702 million yuan, a 29.63% year-on-year increase, with the R&D team expanding from 792 to 1,007 employees, a 27% rise. Among the R&D staff, 82.03% hold a master's degree or higher, and 58.49% are aged 30 to 40, reflecting a concentrated talent structure. However, due to revenue growth outpacing R&D spending, the R&D-to-revenue ratio dropped sharply from 18.81% in the same period last year to 11.72%, a decrease of 7.09 percentage points. This shift reflects the acceleration of commercial progress, but for a chip design company requiring continuous technological iteration, maintaining adequate R&D intensity amid expansion is a key indicator of long-term competitiveness.
In terms of R&D direction, the company's next-generation intelligent processor microarchitecture and instruction set are still under development, with no specific product launch timeline disclosed. On the software side, iterations of the training and inference platforms are ongoing, with adaptations completed for domestic mainstream models such as DeepSeek, Qwen, and Kimi. The company claims to achieve "Day 0 adaptation" for models like DeepSeek, which holds significance for improving ecosystem competitiveness.
Supply Chain and Market Competition: Core Risks Remain Unresolved
Cambricon operates under a Fabless model, relying on external foundries for chip manufacturing. The company and some of its subsidiaries have been added to the U.S. Entity List, creating ongoing pressure on supply chain stability. Switching suppliers would involve costs and potential delivery impacts, a structural risk that cannot be fully mitigated. The company stated it will continue to collaborate with upstream and downstream partners and take proactive measures, but details of these actions are limited.
In the competitive landscape, NVIDIA maintains a dominant position in the global AI chip market, while several domestic integrated circuit design companies are increasing their investments in AI chips. Cambricon's breakthroughs in the domestic market are largely driven by policy support and demand from the information technology application innovation sector. However, its products still lag behind leading international manufacturers in general competitiveness and ecosystem maturity. The company acknowledges in its report that no architecture or system ecosystem for AI chip technology has yet achieved an absolute advantage, and technological pathways remain uncertain.
Employee Incentives and Profit Distribution: Balancing Staff Retention and Shareholder Returns
During the period, Cambricon completed its profit distribution for 2025, paying out approximately 632 million yuan in cash dividends (including tax), representing 30.71% of net profit attributable to shareholders for 2025. Additionally, the company distributed 4.9 bonus shares for every 10 shares held via capital reserves, increasing the total share capital to about 628 million shares.
For incentive mechanisms, the company continued its 2023 restricted stock incentive plan, incurring a share-based payment expense of approximately 43.85 million yuan. Cambricon also released a draft for a 2026 restricted stock incentive plan, indicating that share-based payment expenses will persist for several years. The average salary for R&D employees was about 303,400 yuan, a modest increase of 1.85% year-on-year.
Overall, Cambricon's core financial data for this reporting period is robust, with significant progress in commercial deployment. However, the divergence between cash flow and profit, high inventory levels, supply chain constraints, and intense market competition remain key variables for sustained growth, warranting continued monitoring.
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