On April 28, XIZHI TECH-P officially commenced trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The stock surged more than 445% at its peak during the morning session on its first trading day, with the world's first AI silicon photonics chip stock being heavily bought by secondary market investors. The company took only 16 days from passing its hearing to its listing, a highly efficient process supported by a strong lineup of cornerstone investors. During its public offering, XIZHI TECH-P attracted significant interest from numerous institutional investors. Its Hong Kong public offering was oversubscribed by more than 5,780 times, making it one of the few new listings in the Hong Kong market this year to achieve an oversubscription multiple exceeding 5,000 times. The cornerstone investor group integrated industrial players, sovereign wealth funds, international long-term institutions, and top-tier professional capital. It included giants from the AI computing power industry chain such as Alibaba, China Mobile Capital, Lenovo, and ZTE, alongside international sovereign funds and leading long-term funds from the US and Europe like GIC, BlackRock, Fidelity International, Baillie Gifford, Schroders, Temasek, UBS, and Mirae Asset Securities (Hong Kong). The group also assembled leading domestic private equity firms such as Hillhouse Capital, Greenwoods, and CPE, multi-strategy funds focused on the tech sector like 3W and Aspex, and mainstream investment forces including Ping An Asset Management, GF Fund Management, and ICBC Wealth Management.
XIZHI TECH-P is understood to be the world's first company to achieve large-scale deployment of optoelectronic hybrid computing power and is also the only independent scale-up optical interconnect solution provider in China to have achieved large-scale commercialization. Based on projected 2025 revenue, the company ranks first among independent scale-up optical interconnect solution suppliers in China, and its cumulative shipments of optical computing chips also rank first globally. The Hong Kong listing represents the first step in the company's capital globalization strategy. The net proceeds from this listing amount to HKD 2.377 billion, which will propel the company's global business expansion.
The listing of XIZHI TECH-P aligns with a strategic trend for the Hong Kong market: there is a pressing need to attract more high-tech listings to consolidate Hong Kong's status as a global financial center and attract diverse investors. Simultaneously, XIZHI TECH-P can leverage Hong Kong's international platform to accelerate its expansion into global markets. For XIZHI TECH-P, the Hong Kong listing offers two primary benefits. First, it optimizes the shareholder structure by attracting global investors. The company had already introduced several industrial and strategic investors during its early financing stages. Post-listing, international sovereign funds and leading US and European long-term funds such as BlackRock, Temasek, and UBS have joined the register. This adjustment significantly enhances the internationalization and stability of the ownership structure, laying a solid foundation for long-term strategic execution. Second, it provides access to a global financing platform, offering strong support for domestic business expansion and overseas market development. As a global investment and financing hub, Hong Kong efficiently connects mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, and international capital, providing companies with convenient fundraising channels to quickly secure necessary development funds. Furthermore, attracting global investors boosts brand influence, creating opportunities for global business expansion.
Currently, the Hong Kong market demonstrates a friendly and welcoming attitude towards high-tech companies, often granting them higher valuations. For instance, companies like Biren Technology and Tianshu Zhixin received strong market recognition after their listings, with their market capitalizations having doubled to date. Investors also show particular favor towards early-commercialization stage companies, such as the large model company Zhipu AI, whose market value increased nearly tenfold after listing. As the world's first AI silicon photonics chip stock, XIZHI TECH-P holds a distinct advantage in its positioning within the optical interconnect and optical computing fields. Within China's scale-up optical interconnect market, only two companies have successfully achieved commercialization, and XIZHI TECH-P is one of them, holding an absolute leading position among independent suppliers. As the only optoelectronic hybrid computing stock available on the Hong Kong market, it possesses significant scarcity value. This was a key factor driving the global capital rush and thousand-fold oversubscription during its offering.
From an industry perspective, the optical computing and optical interconnect markets are on the verge of significant growth. According to Frost & Sullivan data, the penetration rate of optical computing chips in China's AI inference chip market is projected to be less than 0.5% in 2025, but is expected to rise to 20% by 2040. The scale-up optical interconnect market in China is forecast to reach RMB 180.5 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 99.6% over the next five years. The industry remains in its early commercialization stages, offering vast room for growth. XIZHI TECH-P is a pioneer in this optoelectronic hybrid computing power track encompassing both optical computing and optical interconnect. The company's founders, Dr. Shen Yichen and Dr. Meng Huaiyu, foresightedly began positioning the company in optical interconnect and optical computing as early as 2017, well before the current AI wave. It was only with the rapid development of generative AI in 2023 that the computing power gap under Moore's Law became significantly apparent. Leveraging this first-mover advantage, XIZHI TECH-P has established a fully self-developed, closed-loop technology stack and a moat that is difficult to replicate.
In terms of commercialization, the company has achieved solid results. To date, its commercialized products include the Scale-up EPS and Scale-up OCS from its optical interconnect product line, along with intelligent transceivers supporting NexusBench. From its optical computing product line, commercialized products include PACE, OptiHummingbird, Gazelle, and PACE 2 (Xizhi Tianshu). The company is at the forefront of the industry in product deployment and market expansion. The IPO proceeds will further accelerate this progress. With net proceeds of HKD 2.377 billion, 70% (approximately HKD 1.66 billion) is planned for R&D investment over the next five years: 35% will focus on the optical interconnect business, targeting core technologies like high-end silicon photonics chip design and high-speed optoelectronic transmission; another 35% will be invested in the optical computing field, concentrating resources on iterating and developing next-generation optoelectronic hybrid computing cards.
XIZHI TECH-P's commercialization roadmap is clear. Within the next two years, the focus will be on the commercial deployment of Scale-up EPS and Scale-up OCS products, launching and commercially deploying products based on Near-Package Optics (NPO), and advancing the auxiliary commercialization of Scale-out PIC products. Within the next three to five years, as Co-Packaged Optics (CPO)-based optical interconnect products and the PACE series of optical computing products, led by PACE 3, achieve sufficient levels of performance, stability, and programmability, the company will enter a deeper commercialization phase, tapping into broad revenue opportunities.
This IPO marks the first step in XIZHI TECH-P's capital globalization strategy, aiding its efforts to secure a first-mover advantage in the global optoelectronic hybrid computing power market. Judging by its market performance, XIZHI TECH-P recorded a significant surge on its debut, driven by strong fundamental prospects and earnings expectations. With no directly comparable optoelectronic computing power stocks currently available in the Hong Kong market for reference, and compared to the debut performances of other companies in the AI sector, XIZHI TECH-P has clearly garnered greater investor favor, potentially initiating a valuation re-rating channel.
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