By Yang Jianyong

Today, Biren Technology experienced a nearly 13% surge in intraday trading, bringing its market value close to 100 billion HKD, ultimately reaching 96 billion HKD. This surge is primarily attributed to the global semiconductor market's shift from GPU computing to GPU-accelerated computing in the era of generative AI. Against this backdrop, GPU chip companies are garnering significant market favor.

Controversy Surrounding GPU Bubbles

Moore Threads, Illuvium, Biren Technology, and Enflame Technology are hailed as the 'Four Little Dragons' of GPUs, often likened to China's counterparts of NVIDIA.

However, the GPU market has recently been embroiled in controversy over potential bubbles. Following several-fold surges, market values have soared far beyond what revenue scales and profitability can justify.

Moore Threads, for instance, once boasted a market value of 442.2 billion yuan. Its current market value stands at 270.5 billion yuan, marking a sharp decline of 171.7 billion yuan from its peak.

Illuvium also reached a peak on its debut trading day, soaring by an astonishing 755% to achieve a peak market value of 358 billion yuan. Unfortunately, its current market value has dwindled to just 205.2 billion yuan, a reduction of over 150 billion yuan from its peak, with a correction amplitude of 42%. As the 'Dual Giants' of GPUs, their combined market value has plummeted by 320 billion yuan compared to their peak. This trend suggests that GPU valuations have transitioned from euphoria to a phase of bubble deflation.

After all, the chip industry still grapples with multiple challenges, including technological iteration, software-hardware ecosystem integration, validation of profit models, and international competition. These factors pose hidden risks for companies with high valuations. Meanwhile, revenue scales struggle to justify market values in the hundreds of billions, compounded by persistent losses, making it imperative to rationally assess long-term development potential.

Notably, following in the footsteps of Moore Threads and Illuvium, Biren Technology, another GPU chip startup, went public. Due to its high pricing, coupled with significant corrections in the shares of Moore Threads and Illuvium, trading on its debut day was relatively subdued, failing to replicate their previous multi-fold surges.

Substitution Opportunities

Biren Technology's market performance has been relatively restrained, underscoring the greater rationality of the Hong Kong stock market, where investors place more emphasis on technological implementation and profit expectations.

Of course, Biren's market value still stands at 90 billion HKD. It's crucial to note that its revenue scale is only in the tens of millions. Revenue for the first half of 2025 was 58.9 million yuan, with losses amounting to 1.6 billion yuan. Cumulative losses from 2022 to 2024 and the first half of 2025 exceeded 6.3 billion yuan.

These significant losses primarily stem from the chip industry's capital-intensive nature, characterized by high investment and long development cycles. The substantial R&D investment contributes to these losses. Meanwhile, compared to chip giants like NVIDIA, Biren Technology faces certain competitive disadvantages.

To enhance GPU market competitiveness, the 'Four Little Dragons' of GPUs have successively raised funds through the capital market. Moore Threads raised nearly 8 billion yuan to bolster its competitive edge in the chip market. Illuvium also secured a substantial 3.9 billion yuan, which will aid in the continuous iteration and upgrading of its existing core product lines, enhancing overall competitiveness.

Biren Technology raised 5.583 billion HKD (approximately 5 billion yuan) for intelligent computing solutions, including upgrading existing GPU chips, developing next-generation GPU chips, and software platforms. Enflame Technology plans to raise 6 billion yuan through the STAR Market.

It's noteworthy that, in actively benchmarking against NVIDIA in product development, the 'Four Little Dragons' of GPUs will collectively raise 22.9 billion yuan. This indicates high recognition at the capital level and strong expectations for domestic AI chip technology paths.

In response, Zhang Wen, the founder of Biren Technology, stated that the company will continue to increase R&D investment, fully promote the iterative development of fully controllable product stacks, build a comprehensive domestic computing power system, and empower the high-quality development of the artificial intelligence industry.

As a GPU chip manufacturer established in 2019, Biren Technology is a heavyweight player in China's GPU sector. To date, it has launched two GPU chips for AI training and inference, as well as edge and cloud inference.

Crucially, China's demand for high-end chips is constrained, leading to accelerated substitution and driving the continuous increase in penetration rates of local AI chips. This enables rapid development of local AI chip manufacturers. Biren Technology's revenue surged from 62.03 million yuan in 2023 to 337 million yuan in 2024, representing a year-on-year increase of 444%. Meanwhile, it has 1.2407 billion yuan in orders on hand.

Benefiting from China's accelerating chip substitution efforts aimed at breaking free from dependence on high-end chips, local AI chip companies are entering a golden development period.

Finally, in the era of large models, computational demands in training and inference continue to accelerate and grow exponentially, benefiting from AI infrastructure construction.

It is certain that AI computing power demand will experience even more rapid growth, driven by continued increased investment in AI infrastructure by tech giants. This will propel the global semiconductor industry towards a trillion-dollar scale.

As the world's most important AI market, China's demand for intelligent computing chips is also rapidly increasing, creating historical development opportunities for local chip manufacturers. Especially since the long-term trend of substitution is irreversible, the market has high expectations for technological breakthroughs and commercial landings of local chips.

However, multiple challenges such as profitability and international competition still need to be addressed. While enjoying the dividends of substitution, risks cannot be overlooked.

Yang Jianyong, a contributor to Forbes China, expresses views that represent his own. He is dedicated to providing in-depth interpretations of cutting-edge technologies such as AI large models, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and smart hardware.