--- title: "Another unicorn IPO has emerged in Haidian, Beijing" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/290922052.md" description: "WENGE AI officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today, with the stock code. The company was incubated by the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and focuses on decision-making AI technology, being hailed as the \"first stock of general decision-making large models\" in the Hong Kong stock market. This IPO was enthusiastically sought after by the market, with the public offering being subscribed nearly 6,000 times, the listing price at HKD 60.70, and a market capitalization of nearly HKD 20 billion" datetime: "2026-06-26T04:15:13.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/290922052.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290922052.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/290922052.md) --- # Another unicorn IPO has emerged in Haidian, Beijing > The decision-making AI emerging from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has officially opened the door to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today. Just now, the huge electronic screen of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange was ignited by a brilliant red. With a crisp and heavy sound of a gong echoing through the hall, WENGE AI officially announced its listing. Let’s rewind the clock three times. The first time is 1956. In this year, the Dartmouth Conference first proposed the concept of "artificial intelligence," marking the beginning of the global AI era. Also in 1956, the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was established, opening the curtain on China's exploration of intelligent technology. The second time is 2017. In the closing days of the "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" wave in 2017, on the bustling Zhongguancun East Road, in the old red-brick building of the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Lei, Luo Yin, and Zeng Dajun decided to establish a "decision intelligence" company that many people had never heard of. The third time is 2026. In the past few days, during the subscription period, the market has already expressed its attitude with real money—WENGE AI's public offering in Hong Kong was subscribed 5,966.78 times, and the international offering was over 20 times subscribed. The local authoritative financial media in Hong Kong, "Hong Kong Economic Journal," generously exclaimed in its headline that this was the "most sought-after star stock among retail and institutional investors" among newly listed stocks during the same period. And today, WENGE AI has finally gone public, not only claiming the title of "the first stock of general decision-making large models" in the Hong Kong stock market but also quickly refreshing a set of data, with a listing price of HKD 60.70, and a market value of nearly HKD 20 billion as of now. It is worth mentioning that WENGE AI's stock code is 1956.HK. For WENGE AI, this string of numbers is like a historical footnote ingrained in its very being: it marks the beginning of the global AI era and the start of China's exploration of AI. The starting point of the story takes us back nine years, to that noisy and restless year of 2017. That year, a seismic technological tsunami was occurring outside. Google's AlphaGo swept through the top human Go masters on the board, pushing the long-dormant term "artificial intelligence" into the spotlight. In an instant, capital poured in wildly, and startups sprang up like mushrooms after rain. At that time, almost everyone's attention was focused on technologies like "facial recognition," "face unlock," and "voice assistants." It was a golden age where simply having "image recognition" written on a PowerPoint could secure tens of millions in funding In the context of the national encouragement for researchers to innovate and start businesses, and to promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in 2017, the three co-founders Wang Lei, Luo Yin, and Zeng Dajun made an important decision: to engage in the industrialization practice of artificial intelligence. They plunged into a corner that was so obscure at the time that even capital could hardly understand it, a place nearly desolate—focusing not on images or sounds, but on deep reasoning with big data and "decision support." "Looking back now, we were really 'young' at that time, not thinking too much, and even unaware of fear," Luo Yin said with a smile years later during an interview, though a hint of stubbornness from those days flashed in his eyes. They rented an office of only 180 square meters near the research institute. On the day they decided on the company name, the founding team found a very insightful phrase in "Lüshi Chunqiu": "Knowing the elegant intention by hearing the strings and singing." However, the idealism in the ivory tower collided with the harsh reality of business. "We went to the user side, delved into their workflow, worked alongside them, learned their business, became half business experts, and then translated that into the products they wanted using technical language." After nine years of entrepreneurship, in the first six years, Zhongke Wenge did not expand its business lines on a large scale, focusing instead on four key areas. The team's idea was simple yet clear: "The process of entrepreneurship is not about addition, but subtraction. The simpler your business is, the easier it is for people to understand." Until 2022, the global tech community fell into madness again with the birth of ChatGPT. Major companies and startups across the industry were frantically competing for GPU computing power, blindly hoarding chips, fearing they would fall behind in this "battle of hundreds of models." At this extremely anxious juncture, Zhongke Wenge made another counterintuitive decision: they did not participate in the external war of words but chose to close the door and focus on developing their own enterprise-level large model—"Yayi." It was six months of relentless work. The laboratory lights burned all night, as the founding team and researchers typed line after line of code, adjusting one parameter after another. Six months later, the first version of "Yayi" was launched. "The first version took six months to come out, which must have been difficult, but it was also the right thing to do," Luo Yin said. This willingness to sit on the cold bench and work hard bore fruit two years later. In July 2025, the "Yayi AI Scientist," built on a proprietary intelligent framework, represented Chinese technology in the internationally authoritative complex task evaluations GAIA and SimpleQA, defeating numerous international giants and winning first place globally. By 2026, they further launched the Decitron decision machine. This time, their goal was clearer and more austere: to make AI not just a toy for chatting and entertaining humans, but a true "digital think tank" that could sit at the desk and participate in complex reasoning and decision support. According to data from ZhiShi Consulting, in 2025, Zhongke Wenge ranked first in revenue in the sub-market of "large model-driven decision intelligence services" in China, with a market share of 10.2% On the user side, by the end of 2025, WENGE AI has served over 650 government and enterprise clients, with the net revenue retention rate of core clients reaching an astonishing 139.5%. In a dilapidated 180-square-meter office, this group of scientists spent nine years to finally transform a niche concept into a powerful tool that opened the doors to the capital market. Along the way to WENGE AI's listing, many supporters emerged. The earliest supporters of WENGE AI came from their origin—Zhongzi Investment, a wholly-owned technology transfer and transformation institution established by the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. After this initial funding, WENGE AI began its rapid journey. Following this round of financing, an investment institution also linked to the Chinese Academy of Sciences pushed open the door of WENGE AI's 180-square-meter office. Zhongke Chuangxing had arrived. In 2018, when WENGE AI had just completed the preliminary prototype of its product and was worrying about the next phase of R&D funding, Zhongke Chuangxing found them. Without much hesitation, Zhongke Chuangxing decisively led the A round, injecting valuable capital into this nascent company. Moreover, in the following years, whenever faced with critical technological challenges, Zhongke Chuangxing steadfastly chose to continue investing, making a total of three investments. In today's venture capital circle, there is still a legendary tale about Zhongke Chuangxing's "god-level blind box" in the field of artificial intelligence. Around the same time in 2018, in addition to heavily investing in WENGE AI, Zhongke Chuangxing also extended a hand to another AI team that had just sprouted on the Tsinghua campus, providing 40 million yuan in angel round funding—Zhipu. Zhipu follows the route of general large models, pursuing the exploration of the boundaries of artificial intelligence; while WENGE AI ventures into the uncharted territory of decision intelligence, aiming to build technological barriers in complex adversarial scenarios. In January 2026, Zhipu was the first to ring the bell for listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and its market value has now surpassed one trillion. The same early investor witnessed two top AI companies they discovered ringing the bell in Hong Kong within six months. This almost sci-fi level of success is an extremely rare spectacle in the decades-long history of domestic venture capital. In addition to the long-term support from Zhongke Chuangxing, WENGE AI's unique "national team" background has also attracted a large army of long-term capital. On its list of shareholders and cornerstone investors, national-level main funds such as the National Development Fund for Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading, the China Internet Investment Fund, and the CCTV Media Industry Investment Fund are included; as well as institutions within the Chinese Academy of Sciences like Guoke Jiahe, Guoke Capital, and Zhongzi Investment. The state-owned background, combined with the extreme patience of hard technology capital, forms a solid bond that has connected every step of this company from its infancy to its peak. They are not speculators looking for short-term cash-outs, but true companions who understand the value of this technological marathon. The sound of the gong from WENGE AI echoing across Victoria Harbour ultimately returned without a doubt to Beijing, thousands of kilometers away. It returned to the place where the entire story began—Zhongguancun, Haidian, Beijing As an important source of original innovation in China, Zhongguancun once again demonstrated its unique ecosystem for nurturing hard-tech unicorns to the global capital market with strength. While people admire the exceptional vision of the founding team of WENGE AI, they cannot help but ponder a deeper question: Why is it that Haidian Zhongguancun can continuously produce hard-tech unicorns like Zhipu and WENGE AI at the crossroads of one technological revolution after another? The answer actually lies in the unique warmth and depth of this land in Zhongguancun. Here, dozens of the world's top research institutions, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, and Peking University, gather, possessing one of the highest and purest densities of high-end intellectual resources globally. For entrepreneurs like Wang Lei and Luo Yin, who originate from "national team" laboratories, stepping out of the research institute's door does not lead them to an ordinary commercial district, but to a naturally technology-rich innovation ecosystem. Here, neighbors might be academicians from a national key laboratory, and junior colleagues could be core developers of next-generation chip technology. If we draw a circle with the center at Zhongguancun South Road and a radius of two kilometers, four of the six "little tigers" of large models are within it. Zooming out, Haidian District, where Zhongguancun is located, has 15 unicorns in the field of artificial intelligence, accounting for 73.3% of Beijing's AI unicorn companies and 26.2% of the national total. The development achievements announced in the "2024 Zhongguancun Science City Unicorn Enterprises High-Quality Development Report" show that in 2024, companies like Zhipu Huazhang, Baichuan Intelligence, Dark Side of the Moon, Zero One Everything, and Hangji Technology have newly become unicorns. The 15 AI unicorn companies account for 30% of the total unicorns in Haidian District, representing 26.2% and 73.3% of the number of AI unicorn companies nationwide and in Beijing, respectively. This extreme concentration of intellectual resources provides a continuous supply of talent for companies like WENGE AI, which start from scratch and tackle foundational technologies head-on. More importantly, Haidian District is known nationwide for its "understanding" and "patience" towards technological innovation. The relevant departments here have a highly qualified professional management team. They understand scientists' terminology and can comprehend long-term planning. It is this nurturing environment that encourages innovation, tolerates failure, and is cautious yet inclusive, allowing companies like WENGE AI to take root and flourish here. WENGE AI started from a 180-square-meter ordinary office in Haidian Zhongguancun, crossing the chasm between academia and business, overcoming obstacles, and ultimately knocking on the door of the international capital market in Victoria Harbor. 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