Intel, the veteran chipmaker once questioned about whether CPUs are still needed in the AI era, recently reached a new historical stock price high during the Labor Day holiday. Just two years ago, it was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average for "failing to keep up with the AI wave," replaced by the now-dominant Nvidia.
The tide has now turned. Since the beginning of this year, Intel's stock price has surged nearly 200%, pushing its market capitalization above $550 billion. Rather than being rendered obsolete by AI, the CPU has instead undergone a significant revaluation.
On May 6, this momentum spread to the A-share market. Domestic CPU leader Hygon Information Technology Co.,Ltd. saw its market value surpass 800 billion yuan for the first time, with its stock price rising 53.53% year-to-date. Notably, the rise of this star company is deeply intertwined with one city: Chengdu.
As early as 2016, Chengdu's state-owned capital invested approximately 813 million yuan in Hygon. According to the Q1 2026 report, Chengdu's state-owned entities hold a 17% stake, corresponding to a market value exceeding 130 billion yuan. Over the past decade, this investment has appreciated by more than 150 times. This represents not only a precise strategic move but also reflects the foresight and resilience of a city and a core technology industry mutually reinforcing each other.
Market sentiment is strongly bullish, with the computing power sector becoming the biggest highlight of the day. According to Choice data, by the close on May 6, the computing power concept sector experienced a broad rally. A total of 11 stocks within the sector hit the daily limit-up, showing explosive growth. Among them, Oriental Nations stood out, leading the gains on the ChiNext board with a 20% increase.
The rally was not limited to limit-up stocks. Overall, 24 listed companies in the sector saw single-day gains exceeding 10%, clearly demonstrating a strong upward trend. Extending the timeline to the start of the year highlights the sector's "bull stock" characteristics even more prominently. Statistics show that Litong Electronics, Xingyun Technology,朗科科技, and盈峰环境 have all seen cumulative year-to-date gains surpassing 100%, effectively doubling their share prices.
Litong Electronics is particularly notable, leading the pack with a staggering 496.06% surge year-to-date, making it one of the most prominent performers in the computing power sector and underscoring strong capital recognition and continued investment in the sector's long-term value. As a company deeply tied to Nvidia, Litong Electronics has built a barrier through scarce resources. Its controlling subsidiary, Century Litong, is Nvidia's sole priority cloud business partner for DGX AI servers in mainland China, enjoying privileges such as priority allocation and shorter delivery cycles of 6-12 months.
Among the companies gaining over 10% today, Hygon Information Technology, which saw its total market value break through 800 billion yuan for the first time, ranked at the top. It is noteworthy that this tech leader, highly watched in the capital markets, is a hard-tech enterprise rooted in Chengdu.
As one of the very few domestic high-performance processor manufacturers with a permanent license for the AMD x86 instruction set, Hygon Information Technology already holds over 50% market share in the domestic CPU market. Its products account for as much as 70% of government cloud-related orders. Crucially, Hygon's self-developed DCU (Deep Computing Unit) is compatible with the internationally mainstream CUDA ecosystem, significantly reducing the software adaptation costs for users migrating from Nvidia's platform. Amid the current global shortage of AI computing power, this technological advantage constitutes a key competitive barrier.
Some online commentators have noted that Chengdu has been one of the most critical growth variables for Hygon's development. Tracing its origins, Hygon was born from a strategic spin-off in 2014 when Sugon split off its chip design business, co-founding Hygon Information Technology in Tianjin with shareholders including Tianjin state-owned capital. Its technological DNA, however, is etched in Beijing, with its core R&D team originating from the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, carrying the mission of the "national team" to breakthrough in core CPU and DCU architectures.
In 2016, Hygon Information Technology made its move in Chengdu High-tech Zone, establishing Chengdu Hygon Integrated Circuit Design Co., Ltd., and locating its key subsidiaries, Hygon Integration and Hygon Microelectronics, there as well. From that point, Chengdu ceased to be merely a registered address or branch, gradually evolving into the true hub for Hygon's transition from technological R&D to large-scale industrialization.
If the Beijing team accomplished the "0 to 1" technological breakthrough, then the Chengdu team achieved the "1 to N" industrial implementation and commercial expansion. This strategic move perfectly leveraged Chengdu's unique advantages developed in recent years: a concentration of talent, a complete industry chain, and abundant application scenarios in the integrated circuit field.
More symbolically, Chengdu's state-owned capital made a forward-looking strategic investment of approximately 813 million yuan as early as 2016. According to the Q1 2026 financial report, Chengdu's state-owned entities hold a 17% stake. Based on today's closing price, this stake is worth over 130 billion yuan.
Over ten years, this investment has yielded a return of over 150 times. This is not merely a successful financial investment but a vivid case study of a city and an industry deeply intertwined and growing together.
Beyond Hygon Information Technology, the A-share market now aggregates the core strength of domestic CPU design, including Loongson Technology, China Great Wall (Phytium), Montage Technology, and NationalChip. Among these, Montage Technology leads with a 68.91% year-to-date increase.
These five listed companies, based on different technological paths such as x86, ARM, and self-developed instruction sets, develop complementarily across markets like servers, desktops, and embedded systems. Together, they are building a diverse, independent, and sustainable domestic CPU ecosystem, providing the fundamental "computing power base" necessary for the large-scale implementation of AI.
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