SHANGHAI — MetaX Integrated Circuits, a Chinese maker of graphics processing units used in artificial intelligence, surged about 700% in its first day of trading as investors piled into the country’s homegrown chip push, Reuters reported. The blowout debut followed an IPO that was more than 4,000 times oversubscribed by retail investors, highlighting both heavy policy support for domestic semiconductors and renewed froth in China’s tech-stock market, Dec. 17, 2025.
MetaX priced its offering at 104.66 yuan a share and opened at 700 yuan before rising as high as 895 yuan in early trading, according to Reuters. The company raised 4.2 billion yuan (about $596 million) selling 40.1 million shares, funding an R&D-heavy push to build domestically designed GPUs for AI inference, general-purpose computing and graphics rendering.
MetaX IPO: the numbers behind the first-day surge
IPO price: 104.66 yuan per share
Open: 700 yuan, a gain of 569% from the offer price
Intraday moves: The stock gained as much as 688% by the trading break, according to the South China Morning Post, and Reuters reported it later climbed as high as 895 yuan in early trading
Cash raised: 4.2 billion yuan (about $596 million)
Demand signal: More than 4,000 times oversubscribed by retail investors
Valuation lens: Reuters said MetaX priced at roughly 50 times 2024 sales, a multiple that dwarfs many global peers
The day’s trading also delivered a blunt reminder of how quickly sentiment can swing around strategic industries in China, where state priorities and retail investor enthusiasm often move in tandem — especially in AI-related stocks.
Why China’s GPU push is pulling money into the market
China’s rush to finance GPU development has been building for months, and MetaX’s listing comes as policymakers and investors view AI chips as a key battleground in the U.S.-China technology rivalry. In October, the Shanghai-based company won approval to list on the STAR Market — a milestone that underscored how quickly Chinese authorities have been clearing the runway for chip IPOs, Caixin reported.
MetaX itself has flagged the risks that come with that strategy: its prospectus cited potential supply-chain disruptions tied to U.S. technology restrictions and acknowledged a significant technology gap with U.S. leaders. Still, the capital raised in public markets is designed to buy time — and talent — for domestic firms to narrow that gap.
Investor exuberance is not universal, even inside China’s buy-side community. “It’s another IPO tale in China that turns a crow into a phoenix,” Reuters quoted fund manager Yang Tingwu as saying, as the stock’s opening price implied an instant re-rating that would be hard to justify by fundamentals alone.
The IPO wave: Moore Threads, Biren and the pipeline behind MetaX
MetaX is not alone. Its debut followed another blockbuster listing by Moore Threads Technology Co., which surged more than 400% after its own offering and was widely described as a domestic challenger to Nvidia, according to Reuters. That first-day pop helped set the tone for a rush of capital chasing anything framed as “China’s answer” to U.S. chip dominance.
Meanwhile, Shanghai-based Biren Technology is preparing a Hong Kong IPO that could raise about $300 million, as China’s GPU startups look for fresh funding channels amid export controls and intense competition, Reuters reported. Other firms, including large Chinese tech groups and AI-chip units, have also been exploring capital-market moves as demand for compute expands across data centers, cloud platforms and consumer AI applications.
The common thread is straightforward: GPU development is capital-intensive, commercialization cycles are long, and U.S. restrictions have raised both the cost and the urgency of building domestic alternatives. Listings provide cash — and, just as importantly in China’s market, a narrative investors can trade.
What to watch after the first-day fireworks
For MetaX, the post-IPO test will be whether fundraising momentum translates into shipments, software ecosystem maturity and sustainable customer adoption — not just a higher stock chart. In the near term, investors will watch how quickly the company converts R&D spending into competitive products, and whether it can meet its stated goal of reaching break-even as early as next year.
More broadly, analysts will be watching whether the latest “AI chip” debut boom becomes a durable financing channel for China’s semiconductor ambitions — or a repeat of past episodes where headline gains on the STAR Market eventually collided with slower-moving fundamentals.
Context: how policy and market forces set the stage
The road to today’s IPO surge didn’t start this year. Several policy and market milestones helped shape the environment now benefiting domestic AI-chip firms:
A 2019 Reuters report described how the STAR Market’s early trading was marked by looser rules and volatile, retail-driven price swings — a pattern that still echoes in today’s outsized debut moves.
A 2022 Reuters report detailed sweeping U.S. export controls aimed at limiting China’s access to advanced chips and chipmaking tools, accelerating Beijing’s emphasis on self-sufficiency.
A 2023 U.S. Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security release outlined updates designed to reinforce and tighten restrictions on advanced computing semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to countries of concern.
A 2024 Reuters report covered China’s creation of a new, roughly $47.5 billion state-backed semiconductor fund, underscoring the scale of resources Beijing has been willing to mobilize.
