3 Chinese tech stocks gain in Hong Kong debuts as investors jump on AI, robotics

Chinese start-up Zhipu AI headlined a trio of technology new listings in Hong Kong on Thursday, in a key test of investor confidence in China’s AI industry as it goes head to head with US giants.

Shares of the Beijing-based company rose 3.3 per cent to HK$120 at the open from the initial public offering (IPO) price of HK$116.20, valuing the company at HK$52.83 billion (US$6.76 billion). Zhipu raised HK$4.35 billion as it became the first pure-play Chinese developer of AI large language models to trade on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

“As an international city, Hong Kong serves as an excellent gateway and bridgehead, enabling us to do more in the internationalisation space,” Zhang Peng, co-founder and CEO of Zhipu, said on the eve of the listing. “This has also been a major advantage for us in choosing to list here.”

Zhipu, officially known as Knowledge Atlas Technology and marketed overseas as Z.ai, would eye markets from Hong Kong to Southeast Asia, and would further expand into the Middle East, Europe and the Global South, he added.

The other debutants recorded greater gains. General-purpose graphics processing unit maker Shanghai Iluvatar CoreX Semiconductor gained 31.5 per cent to HK$190.20 from its IPO price of HK$144.60 and surgery robot maker Edge Medical advanced 36.4 per cent to HK$59 from HK$43.24. Iluvatar and Edge Medical raised HK$3.68 billion and HK$1.2 billion, respectively, through new share sales.

The listings underscore how China’s drive for technological self-reliance is fuelling investor enthusiasm for the country’s AI sector. Hong Kong and mainland exchanges are emerging as key venues, with AI chip designer Biren Technology’s shares soaring 75.8 per cent on their Hong Kong debut last week and peers Moore Threads Technology and MetaX Integrated Circuits logging triple-digit gains in Shanghai last month.