China’s GPU Manufacturers Eye IPOs Amid Growing Market Opportunities

In recent years, China has been making significant strides in the GPU market, with domestic manufacturers like Moore Threads and MetaX preparing to go public through multi-billion-dollar IPOs. These companies are stepping up as real competitors to established giants like NVIDIA and AMD, particularly with the rising interest in their GPU solutions.

The move comes at a time when NVIDIA’s dominance in the Chinese market is beginning to wane, paving the way for homegrown alternatives.

According to a report by UDN, both Moore Threads and MetaX have filed paperwork to launch IPOs on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, with a goal to raise more than 12 billion yuan ($1.65 billion). This financial push is a response to the ongoing U.S. export restrictions, giving China the opportunity to build a viable domestic alternative in the GPU sector. This shift follows the ban on NVIDIA’s H20 AI accelerator in China, creating a gap that local companies have rushed to fill with their own offerings.

In particular, Moore Threads has made impressive progress in the consumer GPU space with products like the MTT S80 and MTT S70. For more demanding professional workloads, they offer the MTT S4000 and S5000. Similarly, Huawei’s Ascend AI chips have found a strong foothold among local tech giants such as Tencent and Baidu, further bolstering the demand for domestic hardware.

What sets these companies apart is the leadership behind them. Both Moore Threads and MetaX are headed by seasoned professionals with experience at major Western firms. Moore Threads, for example, is led by Zhang Jianzhong, a former NVIDIA executive who previously oversaw the company’s operations in China. MetaX’s CEO, Chen Weiliang, hails from AMD, where he managed global GPU designs. This caliber of talent is helping these companies gain credibility, though they still have a long way to go in terms of research and development to match NVIDIA and AMD’s offerings.

The U.S. sanctions have created an opening for these domestic companies to grow, and while there are concerns about China’s respect for intellectual property rights, these companies are determined to leverage this window of opportunity to secure a foothold in the global GPU market. The next few years will be critical as Moore Threads and MetaX strive to expand their product lines and build more competitive offerings in the face of international scrutiny.