By Jiemian News
Baidu’s subsidiary, Kunlun Chip, has officially kicked off its A-share listing process.
On May 7, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) disclosed Kunlun Chip’s (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.’s initial public offering (IPO) and listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR Market) filing information, with China International Capital Corporation (CICC) as the sponsor. Kunlun Chip is controlled by Baidu (China) Co., Ltd., which holds 57.67% of the company’s shares.
In January, Baidu announced that Kunlun Chip had submitted its IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) in a confidential manner, aiming to list on the HKEX’s main board. This move indicates that Kunlun Chip is simultaneously pushing forward with its “A+H” dual-capital platform layout.
According to the filing information, Kunlun Chip was established in June 2011, with a registered capital of 412.37 million yuan. The company’s legal representative is Ou Yangjian, and its registered address is in Beijing’s Haidian District. After initiating the listing process, Kunlun Chip will need to fully comply with the STAR Market’s requirements in terms of corporate governance, financial compliance, internal control systems, and information disclosure. This move also signals that the company’s commercialization and technological maturity have reached the capital market’s recognition threshold, and it plans to expand its financing channels by listing on the STAR Market.
Choosing to simultaneously push forward with listings on the HKEX and the STAR Market is a key layout for Baidu to re-evaluate the value of its hard-tech assets. From a capital perspective, listing on the HKEX focuses on international financing, brand enhancement, and global capital connections, which can meet the needs of overseas market expansion and international technical cooperation. The STAR Market, on the other hand, focuses on hard-tech attributes, aligning with Kunlun Chip’s AI chip innovation positioning, and enjoys the valuation premium and policy support given to hard-core tech companies by the domestic capital market.
Currently, Kunlun Chip is in a critical period of technological iteration, capacity expansion, and customer development. The company’s R&D investment continues to increase rapidly, and large-scale production and market promotion require sufficient funding support. Listing on both markets can gather domestic and foreign capital, providing ammunition for the company’s full-industry-chain layout.
For Baidu, spinning off Kunlun Chip’s listing can break the traditional valuation constraints of its internet business, release the long-term value of its chip business, and form a closed-loop ecosystem of “large models + chips + cloud services”.
Public data shows that Kunlun Chip’s predecessor was Baidu’s Intelligent Chip and Architecture Department, one of the earliest teams in China to layout AI acceleration. In 2021, the company completed its independent financing and started its market-oriented development path, with investors including CPE Yuanfeng, IDG, and Junlian Capital. The first round of financing valued the company at approximately 13 billion yuan. In 2023, Kunlun Chip introduced strategic investors such as BYD, perfecting its industrial ecosystem. In 2025, the company completed its share reform and name change, significantly increasing its registered capital, and adjusted its senior management team to pave the way for listing. The company’s latest valuation has reached 21 billion yuan.
In terms of products, Kunlun Chip has achieved large-scale commercialization of its third-generation chips. The first-generation K-series chips focus on cloud-edge AI reasoning and small-scale training; the second-generation R-series AI chips have a performance increase of two to three times compared to the first generation, mainly targeting high-performance reasoning and large-scale training, covering edge-to-cloud scenarios; the third-generation P800 chip adopts the self-developed XPU-P architecture, with an FP16 computing power of 345 TFLOPS, supporting large-scale cluster deployment.
In late 2025, Kunlun Chip also publicly disclosed the technical roadmap for its next-generation chips – the M100, optimized for large-scale reasoning scenarios, is expected to be launched in 2026; the M300, targeting ultra-large-scale multi-modal model training and reasoning tasks, is expected to be launched in 2027.
IDC data shows that in 2024, China’s acceleration computing chip market shipments were led by NVIDIA with 1.9 million units, followed by Huawei’s Ascend with 640,000 units, Kunlun Chip with 69,000 units, Tianyuan Wisdom Chip with 38,000 units, Cambricon with 26,000 units, Moqi with 24,000 units, and Suiyuan with 13,000 units. This means that Kunlun Chip ranks second among domestic AI chip manufacturers and occupies an important position in the AI reasoning chip market.
Previously, media reports cited a research note stating that Kunlun Chip’s revenue for 2025 is expected to be around 3.5 billion yuan, a significant increase from 2 billion yuan in 2024, with its commercialization process accelerating rapidly. According to research reports from several brokerages, the company’s revenue in 2026 is expected to reach 6.5-8.3 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of over 300% in three years, indicating strong growth momentum.
According to market research firm Gartner, the revenue of artificial intelligence semiconductors is expected to account for about 30% of the total semiconductor revenue in 2026 and will continue to be the core driving force for the industry’s growth. Large-scale enterprises’ investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure construction remains high, with related expenditures expected to increase by over 50% in 2026, driving the demand for graphics processing units (GPUs), customized non-GPU accelerators, and other AI accelerators.
However, Kunlun Chip still faces numerous challenges. Firstly, it needs to catch up with international giants like NVIDIA in terms of high-end training chips and software ecosystems, requiring continuous high-intensity R&D. Secondly, the company’s production capacity is constrained, relying on external foundries for advanced process production, which may limit its market share growth. Additionally, domestic competition is intensifying, with strong competitors like Huawei’s Ascend and Cambricon, making market share competition fierce.
However, Kunlun Chip’s deep ties with Baidu are one of its advantages. In January, after Kunlun Chip’s HKEX listing application was disclosed, Baidu’s stock price rose by over 7%, with the market recognizing the value of its hard-tech assets.
As of the close of trading on the HKEX on May 7, Baidu’s stock price was 137.3 Hong Kong dollars, up 4.33% on the day, with a total market capitalization of 373.733 billion Hong Kong dollars. Both the stock price and market capitalization are in an upward trend, reflecting the capital market’s optimistic expectations for Baidu’s AI strategy and Kunlun Chip’s listing prospects.
