- The Shanghai AI chipmaker will join Moore Threads, MetaX and Biren Technology as China’s “Big Four” homegrown GPU players on the stock market
- Its 61.2 billion yuan valuation underscores the growing role of public markets in funding China’s push for AI-computing independence
AI chipmaker Enflame Technology (燧原科技) set its STAR Market IPO price at 142.18 yuan ($21.15) a share, targeting about 6.12 billion yuan in proceeds and a market capitalization of roughly 61.2 billion yuan.
Enflame will issue 43.04 million shares, or 10% of its post-IPO total. Online and offline subscriptions are scheduled for September 2.
The Shanghai-based company is not yet profitable and is using price-to-sales as its valuation metric, implying a 61.8 times 2025 diluted static P/S ratio.
Its IPO will bring together what Chinese investors call the country’s “Big Four” homegrown GPU makers: Enflame, Moore Threads (摩尔线程), MetaX (沐曦股份) and Biren Technology (壁仞科技).
Just 271 days separate Moore Threads’ December 2025 listing from Enflame’s upcoming subscription, marking one of the fastest capital-market waves in China’s AI-chip industry.
From venture bets to industrial capital
Founded in 2018, Enflame develops cloud AI chips and has built four generations of architectures and five AI accelerators.
Unlike Moore Threads, MetaX and Biren, which pursue GPGPU architectures compatible with Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem, Enflame uses a domain-specific architecture (DSA) and its own TopsRider software stack.
Its R&D spending reached 3.68 billion yuan cumulatively from 2023 to 2025, with R&D expenses at one point exceeding four times annual revenue.
That spending highlights why the industry is moving toward public markets. Venture capital has limited fund cycles, while chip development requires years of sustained investment.
STAR Market reform
A 2025 STAR Market reform allowing unprofitable companies in areas such as AI to list under the exchange’s fifth listing standard helped open the door.
Enflame’s revenue rose from 301 million yuan in 2023 to 990 million yuan in 2025, while revenue for the first three quarters of 2026 is expected to jump more than 325% year-on-year.
But its biggest vulnerability is customer concentration. Tencent, Enflame’s largest shareholder with a 20.46% stake, accounted for 74.9% of its revenue in 2025.
China’s GPU bet enters a new phase
The four companies now entering public markets represent more than a wave of IPOs. They mark a shift in how China is financing its push for AI-computing independence.
Investors are already differentiating among them. Enflame’s 61.8 times P/S multiple is far below the 160-plus multiples assigned to Moore Threads and MetaX, while remaining well above Nvidia’s roughly 25 times.
The premium reflects expectations for domestic substitution, but also exposes the gap between China’s AI-chip ambitions and its remaining supply-chain dependencies, from EDA tools and high-end IP to advanced manufacturing and HBM memory.
For Enflame, the next test is whether it can turn rapid revenue growth into a broader customer base, strengthen its software ecosystem and eventually reach profitability.
That will determine whether China’s AI-chip story can evolve from “domestic substitution” into genuine global competition.
