The leading domestic AI chip company, Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited (688256.SH), has experienced rapid performance growth and a stock price surge exceeding 40 times since 2023, becoming the first company on the STAR Market to achieve a trillion-yuan market capitalization, driven by factors including surging domestic computing power demand sparked by local large language models.
The STAR Market has welcomed its first-ever company with a market value exceeding one trillion yuan.
On June 30, shares of Cambricon opened higher and continued to climb, rising over 8% near midday to push its total market capitalization past the trillion-yuan threshold. By the close, the stock was up 7.66% at 1,595.55 yuan per share, with a total market value of 1.0025 trillion yuan. This milestone marks the birth of the first trillion-yuan market cap company in the seven years since the STAR Market's official launch on June 13, 2019, and it is also the fourth technology company in the A-share market to break through this valuation level.
Cambricon now holds the position of the largest company by market value on the STAR Market and ranks ninth in the overall A-share market capitalization rankings, surpassing traditional financial giants like China Life Insurance Company Limited (601628.SH), China Merchants Bank Co., Ltd. (600036.SH), and Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (601318.SH). Among A-share technology firms, based on market cap, it is now the fourth largest, trailing only Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (300750.SZ), Foxconn Industrial Internet Co., Ltd. (601138.SH), and Zhongji Innolight Co., Ltd. (300308.SZ). Its share price has surged more than 77% year-to-date, outperforming the STAR Market Composite Index's gain of over 50%. Since the beginning of 2023, Cambricon's stock price has skyrocketed more than 40-fold.
An analyst covering the computer and technology sector noted that domestic large language models have triggered a sharp increase in demand for domestic computing power, with the domestic computing power sector entering a boom cycle since 2026. For domestic computing power providers, leading manufacturers like Cambricon may have higher medium-term certainty, with volume expansion being faster and more significant. The analyst suggested that Cambricon's target valuation could potentially reach 1.5 to 2 trillion yuan.
It is noteworthy that Cambricon's founder and Chairman, Chen Tianshi, currently holds a 28.49% stake. Based on the closing price on June 30, the net worth of this tech magnate, who hails from the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has reached approximately 285.6 billion yuan, representing a more than 40-fold increase in less than four years. According to the 2026 Forbes China Rich List released in January, Chen Tianshi ranked 13th with a fortune of $25.6 billion (around 178 billion yuan), making him the wealthiest individual from Jiangxi province at that time.
Cambricon is a typical example of the STAR Market nurturing profitable-yet-hard-tech companies. Public information shows that Cambricon officially listed on the STAR Market on July 20, 2020, becoming the first unprofitable AI chip company in China to go public. It listed under the second set of criteria of the STAR Market, which requires an expected market value of no less than 1.5 billion yuan, annual revenue of no less than 200 million yuan for the most recent year, and a cumulative R&D investment over the past three years accounting for no less than 15% of cumulative revenue over the same period. According to its prospectus, Cambricon's audited revenue for 2019 was 444 million yuan, and its cumulative R&D investment over the past three years was 813 million yuan, accounting for 142.93% of its cumulative revenue, meeting the criteria for listing.
It is understood that the STAR Market has five sets of listing criteria, continuously attracting technology companies, especially those yet to be profitable, to go public. In June 2025, the STAR Market reintroduced its fifth set of listing criteria. In June 2026, the scope of application for the fifth set of criteria was further expanded to include artificial intelligence large language models.
Since its listing, Cambricon has raised funds three times, including its IPO, totaling 8.239 billion yuan. These include 2.582 billion yuan raised in its IPO, 1.672 billion yuan raised in its first follow-on offering in 2022, and 3.985 billion yuan raised in its second follow-on offering in 2025. Most of the funds raised have been invested in research and development, with the company maintaining a consistently high proportion of R&D spending.
According to financial reports, Cambricon's cumulative R&D investment from its listing (2020) through the first quarter of 2026 amounts to 7.436 billion yuan, almost equivalent to the total funds raised from its listings. Its R&D intensity (R&D investment as a percentage of revenue) has consistently remained above 100% until revenue exploded in 2025, after which the ratio dropped below 20%. In the first quarter of 2026, its R&D intensity fell to 11.23%.
In its early listing days, Cambricon was included in the STAR Market's Growth Enterprise Board due to its lack of profitability, with its stock abbreviation being Cambricon-U. After listing, the company experienced five consecutive years of losses totaling 3.816 billion yuan, and its stock price remained depressed for a time, facing market skepticism. In 2025, Cambricon achieved its first annual profit of 2.059 billion yuan. Its total revenue also grew from 458.9 million yuan at the time of its listing in 2020 to 6.497 billion yuan in 2025, an increase of over 13 times. On March 16, 2026, Cambricon became one of the first companies to "remove the U" from its stock ticker on the STAR Market, officially exiting the Growth Enterprise Board.
The first-quarter 2026 report shows that Cambricon's performance continues its rapid growth trajectory, with revenue reaching 2.885 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 159.56%, and net profit attributable to shareholders of 1.013 billion yuan, a significant year-on-year surge of 185.04%.
Concurrently, Cambricon's stock price has achieved a leapfrog increase, with a cumulative gain of over 36 times since its listing. In August 2025, Cambricon's share price surpassed that of Kweichow Moutai Co., Ltd. for the first time, briefly becoming the highest-priced stock in the A-share market. Its total market capitalization has also grown from approximately 25 billion yuan at the time of its listing to over one trillion yuan today.
With NVIDIA's AI chip sales in China stalling, domestic AI chip makers like Cambricon have encountered a dual historic opportunity presented by the AI wave and import substitution. Cambricon is currently accelerating the mass production and delivery of its chips to meet market demand.
On May 23, Cambricon issued an announcement regarding its application for a comprehensive credit line. GF Securities noted that the substantial amount of the bank credit line applied for by the company reflects its confidence in business expansion, preparing funds for expanding purchases of raw materials like wafers and HBM. Amid this positive trend of active operational expansion, the scale of product deliveries is expected to increase further, thereby driving rapid revenue growth.
Sinolink Securities stated that Cambricon achieved Day0 simultaneous adaptation for the ZhiPu GLM-5 series models, with software-hardware co-verification demonstrating the maturity of the domestic computing power ecosystem. The iteration of domestic models and domestic computing power are mutually empowering, forming a positive industrial cycle. The massive gap in inference computing power will continue to open up commercialization space for domestic chips.
An electronics industry analyst from CITIC Securities commented that Cambricon hitting a new high to become the STAR Market's first trillion-yuan market cap company underscores the clear theme and expanding space for domestic computing power. The clarity of order expectations for domestic computing power has significantly increased, supply chain inventory preparation has accelerated, financial statements of related companies have notably improved, and expectations for the second half of the year have strengthened further.
It is worth noting that Cambricon currently trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 370 times. It will need to continue delivering high-growth performance to match the high valuation bestowed by the market. According to Cambricon's performance disclosure plan, it will release its 2026 interim report on August 8. Wind consensus forecasts estimate that Cambricon's 2026 revenue will reach 15.868 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 144.23%, with estimated net profit attributable to shareholders of 5.384 billion yuan, a year-on-year surge of 161.45%.
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