The Tamesis3D rendering of energy storage system
Getty
The artificial intelligence craze has fueled a surge in energy demand, sending shares of energy storage manufacturer Beijing HiSilicon Technology up nearly 500% so far this year and catapulting the company’s founder Zhang Jianhui into billionaire status.
According to reports, the 47-year-old chairman and CEO of Hyperstrong has accumulated a fortune of US$2.1 billion, mainly from his shares in the Shanghai-listed company. Forbes estimate. His wife Xu Rui, also 47, is a deputy manager at the company and indirectly holds 1.1% of the company’s shares through investment vehicles, according to stock exchange filings. Her shares are worth about 746 million yuan (about $105 million).
Shen Meng, Beijing-based managing director of boutique investment bank Chanson & Co., said via WeChat that HyperStrong is benefiting from emerging markets for its products as energy demand soars due to the development of artificial intelligence-related technologies.
HyperStrong also benefits from China’s renewable energy boom, Shen added. As Beijing pushes for further use of green energy, additional wind or solar output will need to be stored so that power can be released into the grid when needed. “The company is supported by a variety of factors related to the energy and technology industries,” he said.
HyperStrong did not respond to a request for comment. The company on Thursday announced an acquisition deal with billionaire Robin Zeng’s battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL). Under the agreement, the company will purchase 200 GW of batteries from CATL over the next ten years for use in its energy storage system. HyperStrong shares surged 20% above their daily trading limit on the day as investors viewed the deal as another sign of continued strong demand.
The company reported sales in the first nine months of this year rose 52.2% year-on-year to 7.9 billion yuan ($1.1 billion), while net profit surged 98.7% to 622.6 million yuan in the same period.
HyperStrong, meanwhile, has set its sights on international expansion. In February this year, the company announced that it would supply 5,000 storage units to Singaporean infrastructure company Alpina over the next two years. In July, HyperStrong said it would work with European power company Repono on energy storage projects with a total capacity of 1.4 gigawatts from 2025 to 2027.
Mr. Zhang founded HiStron in 2011 and listed it on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Nasdaq-like Science and Technology Innovation Board in January this year, raising 861 million yuan.
Before founding HyperStrong, Zhang was the chief technology officer of Siemens China Smart Grid Division. Previously, he worked as a design engineer at National Semiconductor (acquired by Texas Instruments in 2011) from 2005 to 2010. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
