Chinese AI startups beat Silicon Valley to the public markets in a massive IPO wave
Key Points
- Hong Kong's stock exchange had its busiest month since November 2019 in December, with at least 25 companies going public, roughly half of them from the technology sector.
- Chinese AI company Zhipu AI is aiming to become the first large language model company to go public in Hong Kong, seeking to raise $560 million at an expected valuation of $6.6 billion, while competitor MiniMax plans to raise around $540 million.
- In contrast, Western AI leaders OpenAI and Anthropic are still restructuring their corporate frameworks, with Anthropic reportedly planning an IPO for 2026.
Deepseek's rise is driving a wave of Chinese AI companies to go public. Zhipu AI is set to become the first listed large language model company, while OpenAI and Anthropic are still working out their IPO plans.
Hong Kong is seeing its busiest month on the stock exchange since November 2019. At least 25 companies went public in December, with about half of them in tech, Bloomberg reports. Ten more are expected to follow in January.
The success of Deepseek, China's answer to ChatGPT, appears to have fueled investor appetite for domestic AI companies, according to Bloomberg. The excitement shows most clearly at Nuobikan Artificial Intelligence Technology: the software maker's shares have soared more than 360 percent since its December 23 IPO.
Zhipu AI aims to be the first publicly traded LLM company
Zhipu AI, which goes by Z.ai internationally, kicked off its share sale on Tuesday with a target of $560 million, the South China Morning Post reports. Trading is set to begin on January 8, which would make Zhipu the first publicly traded large language model company in Hong Kong.
The post-IPO valuation is estimated at around $6.6 billion. Backers include major tech players like Meituan, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi, a lineup that signals the company's strategic importance for China's AI ambitions.
MiniMax draws investor interest despite Disney and Warner lawsuit
AI startup MiniMax is looking to raise up to $539 million, according to Reuters. Bloomberg reports the offering is already oversubscribed several times over. MiniMax is valued at around $4 billion.
The company focuses on high-performance language and multimodal models. MiniMax also runs a video generator under the Hailuo AI brand, which Disney and Warner are currently suing for copyright infringement. Investors don't seem concerned.
Beyond AI software companies, image sensor maker OmniVision and memory chip producer GigaDevice are also planning Hong Kong IPOs. Beijing's support for the domestic semiconductor industry amid the global AI race is pushing companies to speed up their expansion plans.
OpenAI and Anthropic jockey for position in IPO race
The two leading Western AI startups are also gearing up for potential IPOs. OpenAI converted its for-profit division into a public benefit corporation to pave the way for going public. In September 2025, OpenAI and Microsoft restructured their partnership, with Microsoft now holding about 27 percent of OpenAI Group PBC. The new structure could enable future capital raises in the $100 billion to $1 trillion range.
In early December 2025, Anthropic hired a law firm to start the IPO process, which could happen as early as 2026. Anthropic's investors are pushing to go public before larger rival OpenAI. The company is reportedly currently in talks for a private funding round at a valuation of around $300 billion.
AI News Without the Hype – Curated by Humans
As a THE DECODER subscriber, you get ad-free reading, our weekly AI newsletter, the exclusive "AI Radar" Frontier Report 6× per year, access to comments, and our complete archive.
Subscribe now