Shanghai IPO frenzy: $25 billion for a 1.7% market share

On Friday, a little-known chipmaker went public in Shanghai and raised as much money as Unitree did in August.

Retail investors wanted to buy 4,073 times as many shares as were on offer. By the close, Enflame was worth about $25 billion, with the stock trading at almost three times its offer price.

Yet the company is losing money, and according to market researcher IDC it holds 1.7% of China's AI chip market.

Tencent wants more chips than Enflame can make

Tencent owns a fifth of Enflame and is also its biggest customer. In 2025, 84% of Enflame's revenue came from the internet group, up from 38% a year earlier. According to the IPO prospectus, Tencent already wants more chips than Enflame can supply.

The reason is Washington. Nvidia's most powerful chips are barred from China. Older models can be licensed for export, but hardly any have been delivered so far.

That is why Chinese AI companies rent Nvidia servers abroad, for example in Southeast Asia. The US government is working on a rule to stop that too.

China's own AI chips are getting more expensive

The alternative is chips made in China, and their prices are rising sharply. Huawei has raised the price of its newest AI chip to more than 250,000 yuan, about $37,000. That is up to 50% more than two months ago.

The cause is a special, very fast type of memory that every AI chip needs. It is made mainly by SK Hynix and Samsung in South Korea and by Micron in the US.

Since December 2024, Washington has restricted exports of this memory to China. Chinese chipmakers therefore buy it on the grey market, usually at several times what buyers outside China pay.

The first of the four chip IPOs is down 60%

Enflame is the last of four Chinese AI chipmakers to go public since December 2025. Moore Threads went first, and its shares rose more than 400% on their first day of trading. By the middle of last week, the stock was about 60% below its December peak.

Investors had hoped for more. Revenue rose 147% in the first half of the year, but the company still posted a loss. In August, Moore Threads also announced a second listing in Hong Kong, which means even more shares coming to market.

On September 7, large investors who had been allocated shares in the IPO were allowed to sell for the first time. That nearly doubled the number of tradable shares, and the stock fell 20% in a single day.

Chips are the gold of the 21st century. China is paying a high price for them right now: on the grey market for memory and on the stock market for companies that are still losing money.

But it is a bet on the future with an uncertain outcome.

FROM THE TEAM

2007: an old man pulled me through Beijing in a rickshaw for a couple of RMB. 2026: a robot dog did the job.

The pace of change I see here every day is hard to believe unless you've been here.

 If you want to see China's robots and innovation up close, send us a message.

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🇮🇳 India's NSE stock exchange goes public in a $2.7 billion IPO: The National Stock Exchange is India's largest bourse. Investors can subscribe from September 17 to 21, with a price band of 1,700 to 1,785 rupees per share. On offer is 5.11% of the company, and all shares come from existing owners such as State Bank of India and Canadian pension fund CPP Investments. At the top of the range, NSE is valued at 4.42 trillion rupees, about $53 billion. The stock starts trading on September 24 on rival exchange BSE. Investors who want a piece of India's stock market boom can now buy the exchange itself.

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🇨🇳 Li Auto brings its best-selling SUV to Europe: The Chinese carmaker will show the i6 at the Paris Motor Show in October, where it will be called the Li 6. Sales start in the fourth quarter, first in the UK, where EU tariffs on Chinese electric cars do not apply. The i6 accounts for 59% of Li Auto's sales, with 152,842 units from January to August. In August the company delivered 37,679 cars in total, up 32.1% from a year earlier. Li Auto is now looking for dealers in Germany, the Netherlands and other EU markets.

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🇮🇳 Jio Platforms plans to raise up to $4 billion in its IPO. The digital arm of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance group is targeting a November listing. From mid-September, Jio will pitch to investors in the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, London and the Gulf. India's current IPO record is held by Hyundai Motor India, which raised $3.3 billion in 2024.

🇰🇷 Hanwha Aerospace sells Croatia 18 rocket launchers for €410 million. Croatia is the fourth European country to buy the Chunmoo system, after Poland, Estonia and Norway. It replaces Soviet-era launchers with a range of 20 km, while the new guided rockets reach up to 300 km. Europe's rearmament is turning into an export business for Korea.

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