This is a snapshot of the industry.
An unprecedented boom is underway.
Following Moore Thread and MetaX opening the doors to IPOs, almost all GPU companies are now vying for the next listing ticket. On January 2, BIREN TECH orchestrated the largest IPO of the new year, with its market capitalization once surpassing 100 billion HKD. What is lesser known is that this was the first direct investment project of the Shanghai Guotou XianDao Artificial Intelligence Industry Mother Fund.
Around the same time, Enflame Technology also successfully completed its IPO辅导. This signifies that the domestic GPU "Four Dragons" are soon all set to land in the capital markets.
Notably, MetaX, BIREN TECH, and Enflame Technology were all consistently born and nurtured in Shanghai. Consequently, Shanghai is poised to host three super IPOs in the domestic GPU sector.
The GPU "Four Dragons" are queuing up for listings, with three originating from Shanghai.
In fact, from the very beginning, they chose to establish their roots in Shanghai.
In March 2018, Zhao Lidong and his former colleague Zhang Yalin resolutely co-founded Enflame Technology in a temporary office in Shanghai's Zhangjiang;
In September 2019, Zhang Wen, a Harvard PhD with a Wall Street background, after serial entrepreneurship, decided to establish BIREN TECH in Shanghai;
In September 2020, also in Shanghai's Zhangjiang, Chen Weiliang, who had long worked at AMD, brought together two former colleagues to co-found MetaX.
Rooted in Shanghai, they endured the troughs. Now, the entrepreneurial wave from several years ago is finally culminating in a wave of listings.
The latest scene unfolded on January 2, when BIREN TECH, as the "first GPU stock on the Hong Kong stock market," officially debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, opening over 80% higher and seeing its market cap briefly exceed 100 billion HKD. The cornerstone investor lineup was exceptionally strong, with 23 top-tier investment institutions collectively intending to subscribe for 28.99 billion HKD, simultaneously setting a staggering oversubscription record of over 2,300 times.
Slightly earlier, in December of last year, MetaX listed on the STAR Market, marking a moment of super returns for the venture capital circle. Its IPO price was 104.66 yuan per share, raising a total of 4.186 billion yuan, with its first-day surge reaching 692.95%, pushing its market capitalization to a peak of 350 billion yuan.
In less than a month, Shanghai gained two giants valued in the hundreds of billions.
Now, Enflame Technology is also on its way. On January 1, news emerged that Enflame Technology, which had previously withdrawn its辅导 filing, had successfully completed its IPO辅导 work and is expected to apply for a STAR Market IPO. According to the "2025 Hurun Global Unicorn List," Enflame Technology is valued at over 20 billion yuan.
In reality, there are more GPU companies rooted in Shanghai than one might imagine. Media data shows that among the over ten GPU companies that have clearly disclosed they are either listed or in the IPO process, those from Shanghai account for the highest proportion.
For example, both瀚博半导体 and天数智芯 are based in Shanghai. Almost simultaneously with the news of Enflame Technology completing its IPO辅导,瀚博半导体 also disclosed a report on the completion of its IPO辅导 work, while不久后的1月8日,天数智芯 is set to list on the main board of the Hong Kong stock market.
Shanghai's state-owned capital has reaped huge rewards.
"The reason for choosing to start a business in Shanghai stems from the city's foresight and sincerity towards hard tech," Zhang Wen, the head of BIREN TECH, once said regarding his connection with Shanghai.
What the outside world may not know is that the Shanghai Guotou XianDao Artificial Intelligence Industry Mother Fund's first direct investment project was BIREN TECH. That was in March 2025, when the fund co-led an investment round in BIREN TECH, with several other institutions and industrial capital, including Qiming Venture Partners, participating.
Previously, Shanghai Guotou XianDao revealed that its team had actually established contact with BIREN TECH very early on, believing it to be a down-to-earth, resilient team moving forward with dreams. "The ultimate decision to firmly invest was firstly based on a consensus to support the domestic intelligent computing industry chain, which led us to systematically focus on investment opportunities in the GPU赛道. Secondly, it was based on the team's characteristics and the company's development situation, leading us to choose to place our bet and increase our stake in BIREN TECH."
Similarly, the growth path of Enflame Technology, also born in Shanghai, has seen the presence of Shanghai's state-owned capital.
In September 2023, Enflame Technology announced the completion of a 2 billion yuan Series D financing round, co-led by subsidiaries and industry funds under Shanghai International Group, including International Asset Management, Guoxin Venture Capital, Guofang Innovation, the Shanghai Fintech Fund under GP Capital, and Guhe Investment.
Since its founding, Enflame Technology has independently developed and iterated through four generations of architecture, producing 5 cloud AI chips. Coincidentally, its core founder, Zhao Lidong, graduated from the Class of '85 of Tsinghua University's Wireless Communications Department, a class that has produced many notable figures in China's semiconductor industry, such as Will Semiconductor's founder Yu Renrong, GigaDevice co-founder Shu Qingming, Maxscend Microelectronics co-founder Feng Chenhui, and GalaxCore Microelectronics founder Zhao Lixin.
Beyond local GPU firms, Shanghai's state-owned capital also invested in Moore Thread – Guosheng Capital, representing Shanghai's state-owned assets, led the 1.48 billion yuan fifth capital increase in Moore Thread with an investment of 635 million yuan.
Post-IPO, Guosheng Capital held approximately 19.5887 million shares in Moore Thread, with the corresponding book value once soaring as high as 18 billion yuan, representing a highly lucrative return on this investment.
Why Shanghai?
It boasts the most comprehensive integrated circuit industry chain in the country. Currently, Shanghai's IC industry has formed a complete closed loop, spanning from EDA tools and wafer manufacturing to equipment production, chip design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, and even downstream applications. Data shows that in 2024, the scale of Shanghai's integrated circuit industry exceeded 390 billion yuan, accounting for about 25% of the national total.
The venture capital circle still remembers that in March 2024, the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission announced plans to establish mother funds with a total scale of 100 billion yuan focused on the three leading industries of integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence. Subsequently, the three leading industry mother funds were officially launched.
Coinciding with the rise of DeepSeek in early 2025, domestic computing power chips also became highly sought-after. Therefore, within the three leading industries, the intersection of artificial intelligence and integrated circuits, particularly computing power chips, became one of Shanghai's most prioritized directions.
All these factors, combined with Shanghai's unparalleled advantage as an international metropolis in talent reserves, have created fertile ground for the GPU industry to thrive here.
Looking around, Shanghai's frontier industries are blossoming in multiple areas.
In the robotics field we are familiar with, star companies like智元,傅利叶, and开普勒 have their headquarters in Shanghai; in the AI large model sector, Shanghai hosts unicorns like MiniMax,阶跃星辰, and无问芯穹; on the brain-computer interface track, companies like脑虎科技 and阶梯医疗 have chosen to base themselves in Shanghai... In a few days, MiniMax will also list in Hong Kong.
Even in controlled nuclear fusion, dubbed the ultimate energy source, the leading player上海超导 was born as early as 2011 in Shanghai's Zhangjiang and is now sprinting towards a STAR Market IPO; Novafusion, China's first company focused on the commercialization of small modular nuclear fusion, was established in Shanghai's Lingang, having previously completed a 500 million yuan angel round, setting a record for the largest single financing round for a private nuclear fusion company in China.
There are also other nuclear fusion companies like能量奇点,上海未来聚变,翌曦科技, and中国聚变能源, stringing together Shanghai's nuclear fusion landscape from complete machine R&D to core components.
"Shanghai is far more than just the financial industry." This is the impression of an industrial investment promotion official from another city. A city's destiny is often hidden in how it greets tomorrow.
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