Iluvatar CoreX plans to raise about $850 million as its shares triple since January. The Shanghai chipmaker listed in Hong Kong six months ago, pulling in roughly $475 million from investors. Now, it’s gearing up to cash in again, riding China’s AI-chip boom.
The company’s revenue last year hit 1 billion yuan—about $148 million—mostly from selling GPUs. Iluvatar is in talks to sell at least 50,000 chips to ByteDance this year, a clear sign demand for AI hardware is scorching hot. Investors like the story: the stock price more than tripled since early 2026.
Biren, another AI chipmaker, is raising HK$7 billion, or about $892.5 million, to boost GPU production. It plans to issue 153 million new shares at HK$46.2 each. Since its IPO, Biren’s stock surged nearly 150%, though it slipped 5.4% on July 6, 2026. The company cited “robust customer demand” from cloud services and AI data centers to justify the capital raise. It said it must scale production to meet orders on time.
Meanwhile, CXMT, China’s top DRAM maker, is preparing for a massive 29.5 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) IPO on the Shanghai Star Market. CXMT’s revenue in Q1 exploded 719% year on year, with a net profit of 33 billion yuan. Its DDR5 server memory prices are within 5 to 10 percent of global giants Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. CXMT has started taking orders for DDR5 chips from Tencent and ByteDance, showing big tech’s confidence in homegrown components.
DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, is developing its own AI chip to cut reliance on US suppliers. The chip targets inference tasks in AI computing, a critical bottleneck. DeepSeek rose to fame over a year ago with two viral AI models. Its founder, Liang Wenfeng, said US export controls have been a major hurdle. DeepSeek relied on Nvidia’s H800 chip to train its foundation model, but that chip was banned in China late last year. Nvidia’s shares fell about 1.6% in premarket trading after DeepSeek announced its chip plans.
South Korean memory giant SK Hynix is also cashing in, planning to sell $28 billion in stock in the US later this week. Its stock has soared over 700% in the last year in Korean currency and carries a market valuation above $1 trillion. The global chip market is red-hot, and Asia’s memory and AI chipmakers are racing to claim their share.
China’s AI chip scene is a mix of aggressive capital raising, rapid revenue growth, and strategic moves to reduce US dependency. Iluvatar, Biren, and CXMT push hard on production and IPO fronts. DeepSeek aims for tech independence, developing custom AI chips despite export hurdles. It’s a high-stakes sprint, and the prize is dominance in one of tech’s most lucrative fields.
One analyst noted, “Nvidia is at zero in China and staying there. DeepSeek has almost no chance of selling silicon outside of China unless it gets access to leading-edge manufacturing.” The message is clear: China’s AI chipmakers are building walls and ladders simultaneously—cutting off reliance on US tech while chasing global competitiveness.
Based on
- Iluvatar CoreX seeks to raise $850m as China’s AI-chip rally lifts its shares — thenextweb.com
- China’s Biren seeks US$900m to fund GPU push and challenge Nvidia amid AI boom | South China Morning Post — scmp.com
- Inside CXMT’s US$4.3b IPO: soaring profits meet US export threat and high-stakes HBM race | South China Morning Post — scmp.com
- China’s DeepSeek is building its own AI chip to end US reliance | The Independent — independent.co.uk
- South Korean chipmaker plans huge U.S. stock offering — axios.com
