Emerging Semiconductor Companies Gain Attention in Market

MetaX Integrated Circuits saw its shares soar nearly 700% on its trading debut in Shanghai, closing at 829.90 yuan after an opening surge of 569% from the offer price of 104.66 yuan. The company, which is the second Chinese producer of graphics processing units, or GPUs, to go public this month, raised 4.2 billion yuan, equivalent to about 596.3 million U.S. dollars, from selling 40.1 million shares in its initial public offering.

This debut makes MetaX the third-best performing IPO on mainland stock exchanges this year. The stock reached an intraday high of 895 yuan, reflecting strong investor enthusiasm tied to China's push for semiconductor self-sufficiency and advancements in artificial intelligence.

A rival company, Moore Threads Technology, also experienced a significant debut, soaring 425% less than two weeks prior. MetaX was founded in 2020 by three former AMD employees, including chairman and general manager Chen Weiliang, who previously served as a senior director at AMD.

The company plans to use the proceeds from its IPO to fund research and development for high-performance GPUs, targeting applications in AI inference, general-purpose computing, and graphics rendering.

According to the South China Morning Post, this trend highlights the increasing demand for domestically produced chips as China seeks to reduce reliance on imports for AI technologies.