Weekly Investment Overview
Global LLM First Stock
Record IPO Oversubscription
First State-owned AI Unicorn
Largest Semiconductor IPO
Record Brain-Computer Interface
This week's Chinese investment market showed strong growth in AI and semiconductor sectors, particularly in IPOs and financing. AI landmark events dominated headlines with Z.ai successfully listing on HKEX as the "first global large model stock" with a market value exceeding HK$55 billion. MiniMax Group also listed on HKEX with share prices surging over 70% at opening, achieving a market value of HK$90 billion and oversubscription of 1800 times. Meanwhile, TeleAI completed its first capital increase, becoming the first state-owned AI unicorn.
Investment Highlights
Key Deals
| Company | Sector | Amount | Deal Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Z.ai | AI Large Models | HK$4.3 billion | IPO |
| MiniMax Group | AI Large Models | HK$5.54 billion | IPO |
| OmniVision Integrated Circuits Group | Semiconductor | HK$104.8/share | IPO |
| X Square Robot | Embodied Intelligence | ¥1 billion | Series A++ |
| BrainCo | Brain-Computer Interface | ¥2 billion | Financing |
| Nexchip | Semiconductor | ¥35.5 billion | Investment |
The investment landscape this week shows a clear structural trend with AI and semiconductor sectors receiving significant capital attention. Large language models and embodied intelligence are emerging as key innovation areas, with companies like Z.ai and X Square Robot securing landmark funding. The semiconductor industry also showed robust momentum with OmniVision's successful listing and significant investments in SMIC, Hua Hong, and Nexchip totaling nearly ¥85 billion.
In the AI sector, we're witnessing the emergence of specialized segments receiving targeted investments, including embodied intelligence, quantum computing, and brain-computer interfaces. This reflects a maturing AI ecosystem in China that's moving beyond general models to specialized applications. The participation of state-backed investors in TeleAI's financing round also highlights the strategic national importance placed on AI development.
Semiconductor investments are increasingly focused on mature process nodes (28nm and 40nm) and key components like image sensors, indicating a pragmatic approach to achieving self-sufficiency in critical technologies. SEMI's forecast of record global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales reaching $133 billion in 2025 suggests this sector will remain investment-intensive in the coming years, with particularly strong growth in memory technologies driven by AI applications.
China Market & Policy Weekly Update
Record Local Government Bond Issuance
Special Bonds for Infrastructure
Debt Management Bonds
This week saw active developments in China's policy landscape and industry dynamics, particularly in infrastructure, real estate, technological innovation, and foreign investment. Local government bond issuance in 2025 reached a record ¥10.3 trillion, growing 5.2% year-on-year. Special bonds expanded their usage scope to include more real estate projects, aiming to stabilize the property market and boost investment, with approximately ¥4.6 trillion of new bonds directed toward municipal infrastructure, land reserves, and affordable housing.
Policy Analysis
The record local government bond issuance of ¥10.3 trillion, together with the new regulations on government investment funds, signals China's continued commitment to using fiscal tools to support economic growth. The expansion of special bond usage to include more real estate projects represents a tactical shift to address property market challenges while maintaining investment momentum. With approximately ¥4.6 trillion directed toward infrastructure and housing, these policies create significant opportunities for companies in construction, urban development, and related sectors.
Shanghai's measures to encourage foreign reinvestment demonstrate China's ongoing effort to attract and retain foreign capital, particularly important given recent concerns about foreign investment outflows. The simplified environmental assessment procedures for pharmaceutical projects reflect a targeted approach to reducing regulatory burdens in strategic industries, aligning with China's broader push to enhance innovation capacity in high-value sectors like pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.
The systematic regulation of government investment funds represents a significant institutional reform, bringing greater transparency and strategic alignment to a previously fragmented system. By clearly delineating the roles of national and local funds, the government aims to improve capital allocation efficiency while ensuring investments serve national strategic objectives. These changes will likely lead to more focused investment in advanced manufacturing, semiconductor, AI, and other core technology areas identified as national priorities.
Tech Market Overview
This week, China's technology and business markets demonstrated robust development, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI) and embodied intelligence sectors, attracting substantial capital and market attention. Multiple Chinese AI companies successfully went public or secured significant financing, indicating strong market confidence in AI technologies and recognition of their commercial prospects.
MiniMax Group IPO Day 1 Surge
Z.ai IPO Funds
AI Drug Screening Speed
AntAngelMed Model Size
Tech Frontiers
The successful IPOs of MiniMax Group and Z.ai demonstrate strong market confidence in Chinese AI companies, with both achieving remarkable oversubscription rates and market valuations. MiniMax Group's 109% first-day surge and Zhipu's status as the first global AGI base model listing company highlight investors' enthusiasm for Chinese AI innovation. These developments mark a significant milestone in China's AI sector, signaling its growing competitiveness in the global technology landscape.
Particularly noteworthy is the acceleration in embodied intelligence, with X Square Robot securing ¥1 billion in Series A++ financing and the domestic WALL-OSS model ranking second globally in RoboChallenge evaluations. Alibaba Cloud's first investment in embodied intelligence suggests this sector is rapidly maturing from research to commercial applications. The demonstration of household embodied AI robots by Zhuimi at CES indicates this technology is approaching consumer-ready status.
In specialized AI applications, medical AI continues to show breakthrough potential. Tsinghua University's AI drug screening technology capable of 100 trillion screenings daily represents a significant advancement in pharmaceutical research. Similarly, Ant Group's AntAngelMed medical model topping OpenAI's HealthBench evaluation demonstrates China's strong capabilities in domain-specific AI development. These advancements, coupled with the emergence of enabling technologies like Tecorigin's virtual instruction set architecture and Luchen Cloud's open fine-tuning SDK, are creating a robust foundation for AI's continued innovation and commercialization in China.
Trending Tech Keywords
Selected News
MiniMax Group Surges 109% on First Trading Day, Market Value Exceeds HK$76.3 Billion
MiniMax Group opened at HK$235.4 on its first trading day, rising 42.7% from its IPO price, and ultimately closed at HK$345, up 109% with market value reaching HK$76.3 billion. The company's 31-year-old co-founder Yun Ye Yi now holds a personal wealth of HK$4.8 billion.
X Square Robot Completes ¥1 Billion Series A++ Financing
X Square Robot announced the completion of ¥1 billion in Series A++ financing led by ByteDance and Sequoia China. This marks the company's seventh round of financing in the past year, with cumulative funding exceeding ¥3 billion. Alibaba Cloud has entered the embodied intelligence sector for the first time, focusing on the development of general-purpose embodied intelligence large models.
Ant Group Launches Medical Model AntAngelMed, Tops HealthBench Rankings
Ant Group, together with Zhejiang Provincial Health Information Center and Zhejiang AngelMed Medical AI Technology Co., Ltd., launched a medical large model – Ant·AngelMed, with inference speed exceeding 200 tokens/s and parameter scale of 100B. The model ranked first in the OpenAI HealthBench evaluation with a score of 62.5 points.
Domestic AI Chip Company Tecorigin Launches Virtual Instruction Set PCX
Domestic AI chip company Tecorigin released its first high-compatibility virtual instruction set PCX and high-performance industrial-grade compiler PCXAC, which significantly reduces migration costs across hardware platforms through logical abstraction of underlying computing units.
Domestic Embodied Intelligence Model WALL-OSS Ranks Second Globally in RoboChallenge
The domestic embodied intelligence base model WALL-OSS scored 46.43 points in the RoboChallenge real machine evaluation, ranking second globally, surpassing Physical Intelligence's pi0 from the US. The model performed particularly well in the "folding cloth" task, with its open-source nature expected to drive development in the embodied intelligence field.
Local Government Bond Issuance Exceeds ¥10 Trillion for First Time in 2025
Local government bond issuance has concluded for 2025, with issuance scale reaching ¥10.3 trillion, growing 5.2% year-on-year and exceeding ¥10 trillion for the first time. The usage scope of new special bonds has expanded with stronger support for real estate projects to stabilize the property market. It is expected that local government bond issuance will continue to exceed ¥10 trillion in 2026.
Four Ministries Issue Guidelines for Government Investment Funds
The National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly released the "Working Measures for Strengthening Government Investment Fund Layout Planning and Investment Direction Guidance (Trial)." These measures systematically regulate government investment funds at the national level for the first time, clarifying that national funds should support national modernization industrial system construction and breakthroughs in core technologies.
Ministry of Ecology and Environment Optimizes Environmental Assessment for Pharmaceutical Industry
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment released "Guidelines" to optimize environmental assessment management for pharmaceutical industry construction projects and improve the industry's green development level. The guidelines encourage pharmaceutical companies to bundle similar projects for approval and clarify conditions where companies can avoid redoing environmental assessments when environmental risks and pollution emissions don't exceed original assessments.
Zhipu Officially Lists on HKEX as First Global Large Model Stock
Zhipu Technology officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the first global AGI base model listed company. The IPO was priced at HK$116.20 per share, with market value exceeding HK$55 billion. Cornerstone investors subscribed for nearly HK$3 billion, with oversubscription reaching 1164 times. The company's core product, the GLM series, has shown excellent performance in the global large model market.
Shanghai Releases Measures to Encourage Foreign Investment Enterprises to Reinvest
Shanghai has released several measures to encourage foreign-invested enterprises to reinvest within China. These measures support foreign investors in using undistributed profits and legal profits for reinvestment in various forms, including establishing new enterprises and increasing capital in existing ones. The city will also establish a database for reinvestment projects by foreign-invested enterprises, optimize land use, and simplify foreign exchange registration processes.