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China’s leading artificial intelligence company Minimax Group on Friday became the latest in a string of Chinese technology companies to reap huge gains from going public.
MiniMax raised HK$4.8 billion (US$620 million) in its IPO for research and development, and its shares doubled on its first day of trading in Hong Kong.
MiniMax’s share price closed at HK$345 per share, compared with its issue price of HK$165.00, valuing the company at approximately US$13.7 billion. The stock price once rose to HK$351.80.
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Founded in early 2022 by former SenseTime executive Yan Junjie and headquartered in Shanghai, MiniMax develops artificial intelligence models that can process text, audio, images, videos and music.
Its popular apps include Hailuo AI, a video generation tool, and Talkie, an AI character interaction app that enables users to interact with artificial intelligence-driven virtual characters.
Minimax is also one of the first large language model developers in China seeking to go public.
“This is just the beginning,” Yan said at the company’s listing ceremony. “We look forward to the next four years and hope that the pace of technological advancement in the AI industry will continue at the same rapid pace.”
Its cornerstone investors include Alibaba, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Hong Kong alternative asset manager Boyu Capital and Mirae Asset.
MiniMax is the second of China’s so-called “artificial intelligence tigers” to go public, the first being Zhipu Artificial Intelligence, which went public on Thursday with its share price soaring 13%.
Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at technology research firm Omdia, said: “MiniMax’s focus on the consumer market is more attractive to investors looking for high-growth opportunities, while Zhipu’s model for enterprises and governments is considered more stable but less exciting in a market driven by hype.”
He added that investors were also attracted by the strong performance of the company’s open source base model on key benchmarks.
The craze for artificial intelligence linked lists
Meanwhile, Zhipu Artificial Intelligence, flagged by OpenAI as a Chinese artificial intelligence startup making significant progress in government contracts, rose a further 20.6% on Friday. The company raised HK$4.35 billion in its initial public offering and is currently valued at nearly US$9 billion.
With artificial intelligence dominating global investor interest, expectations are high for Chinese AI listings and other deals, although China’s most prominent AI company, DeepSeek, has yet to indicate any IPO plans.
Huawei artificial intelligence server derivative product xFusion CITIC Securities has been hired to prepare for the mainland IPO, and at the same time Memory chip manufacturer Changxin Memory Technology and Baidu AI chip arm Kunlun core It is also planning to go public.
Two Shanghai-listed semiconductor experts, OmniVision and GigaDevice, will also start trading in Hong Kong next week following secondary offerings.
Hong Kong saw a resurgence in initial public offerings last year, becoming the world’s top listing destination, driven by regulatory changes and pent-up demand from companies seeking capital after years of tight regulation by mainland Chinese authorities. 115 newly listed companies raised about $37.2 billion, the highest level so far in 2021, LSEG data showed.
Betting on the tech war
Chinese artificial intelligence and chip companies have also flooded the Hong Kong IPO market in recent weeks.
Shares have stayed above the offer price since the listing, underscoring strong investor interest as Beijing steps up efforts to build homegrown technology companies in response to U.S. restrictions on the industry.
For example, on Thursday, in addition to Zhipu AI, two other newly listed Chinese technology companies also performed strongly. Shanghai Iluvatar CoreX, a semiconductor company that designs general-purpose GPUs, opened 31.6% higher than the issue price of HK$144.60 and closed up 8.4% at HK$156.80. On Friday, the index rose another 11%.
Similarly, surgical robot company Shenzhen Aige Medical rose 36.4% from its offering price of HK$43.24 on Thursday and closed up 30.9% to HK$56.60. However, the temperature dropped by about 1% on Friday.
Nonetheless, the strong IPO raised a total of HK$9.3 billion (US$1.19 billion).
Chinese authorities are rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and chip listings to bolster domestic alternatives to advanced U.S. technologies, a backdrop that has attracted technology industry issuers.
Zhipu Artificial Intelligence, which was spun out of Tsinghua University, invests most of its proceeds in research and development.
Dan Ouyang, a partner at Baker McKenzie who advises the exclusive sponsor and underwriter of Zhipu AI’s IPO, said in a statement on Thursday that its listing will “provide the company with substantial capital to drive its next phase of growth.”
Meanwhile, Shanghai Iluvatar CoreX has spent most of its listing proceeds on the research and development of chips, accelerators and software. Shenzhen Aige Medical will also use the proceeds to fund its research and development, commercialization, manufacturing capabilities and strategic acquisitions.
Jenny Hu, head of UBS China and chairman of UBS Securities, said on Wednesday that the value of listed artificial intelligence and high-tech companies in China is about US$5 trillion, compared with about US$30 trillion in the United States, and China has not yet cultivated US$1 trillion companies.
“It’s just a matter of time,” Hu added.
- Reuters, with additional editing and input by Vishakha Saxena
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