Key facts
- Enflame Technology surged about 200% in its debut on Shanghai's Star market.
- The company raised 6.12 billion yuan, or $913 million, in its IPO.
- Enflame develops AI chips for training and inference.
- Tencent is a backer of Enflame Technology and its largest customer.
- Enflame's online retail tranche was more than 6,000 times oversubscribed.
- Enflame expects to break even in 2026 or 2027.
Investors are piling into China's artificial intelligence chipmakers as Beijing's push to build domestic alternatives to Nvidia fuels a new wave of blockbuster IPOs. On Friday, Shanghai Enflame Technology surged about 200% in its debut on Shanghai's tech-focused Star market after raising 6.12 billion yuan, or $913 million. Backed by the Chinese gaming giant Tencent, Enflame develops AI chips for training and inference, making it one of a new generation of domestic chipmakers benefiting from Beijing's push for semiconductor self-sufficiency amid US export restrictions. Enflame's online retail tranche was more than 6,000 times oversubscribed, underscoring strong investor appetite for Chinese AI chipmakers. Enflame's debut follows the December listing of fellow AI GPU designer Moore Threads, another Chinese startup seeking to challenge Nvidia, as well as the recent high-profile IPOs of memory chipmaker CXMT and robotics company Unitree. In 2025, Enflame's revenue rose 37% to 990 million yuan, while its loss excluding non-recurring items narrowed to 1.20 billion yuan, according to the company's listing prospectus. Meanwhile, its largest customer, Chinese internet and gaming giant Tencent, accounted for nearly 84% of sales. The company expects to break even in 2026 or 2027. Morgan Stanley analysts noted in a note on August 28 that China is "still at a very early stage of a multi-year IPO upcycle" as semiconductor, AI infrastructure, and robotics companies tap public markets to fund research and expansion. The bank said many of the new listings are developing technologies China sees as strategically important, with companies investing more heavily in research and capital spending, though many have yet to become profitable.