Enflame shares soar 188% on Shanghai debut as Nvidia challenger taps AI fever

Enflame Technology, one of the major challengers to Nvidia in China, saw its share price surge 188 per cent in its Shanghai trading debut on Friday, giving the Tencent Holdings-backed artificial intelligence chipmaker a market capitalisation of 176.4 billion yuan (US$26.3 million). The Shanghai-based company opened at 410 yuan, up from its issue price of 142.18 yuan. The performance reflects continued investor appetite for domestic AI chip champions, with Enflame being the last of China’s “four little dragons” in the sector to go public. Enflame’s gains stood out against the broader market on Friday. The Star 50 Index fell 1.3 per cent at the open, while the benchmark CSI 300 Index dropped 0.9 per cent. Enflame raised about 6.12 billion yuan by selling 43.04 million shares. The offering valued the firm at about 61 billion yuan before trading began, making it one of the largest tech listings in mainland China this year. The retail portion of its initial public offering (IPO) was oversubscribed by 4,073 times, with about 7 million online investors alone submitting orders for 42.1 billion shares. The allocation rate for individual investors was just 0.025 per cent, one of the lowest on the mainland market this year. The strong market response highlights Enflame’s role – alongside peers Moore Threads, Biren Technology and MetaX – in Beijing’s push for semiconductor self-sufficiency as the US restricts exports of advanced chips from global leaders such as Nvidia. Early stakeholders saw their paper wealth soar following the blockbuster debut. Tencent, Enflame’s largest institutional backer, saw the value of its 20 per cent stake rise to nearly 35 billion yuan. Other prominent investors include memory chipmaker GigaDevice, smartphone and electric vehicle maker Xiaomi, chip packaging firm Tongfu Microelectronics, and telecommunications giant ZTE. Founded in 2018, Enflame has rapidly scaled its business on surging domestic demand for AI computing power. The company expected revenue to reach between 2.3 billion and 3 billion yuan in the first nine months of 2026, a year-on-year jump of up to 455 per cent, according to its prospectus. However, Enflame remains unprofitable as it continues to pour capital into research and development. Chairman Zhao Lidong said Enflame was on track to turn a profit as early as this year. “Considering our orders on hand, product delivery schedules, staff cost budgets, and R&D planning, we expect to achieve consolidated profitability in 2026 or 2027,” Zhao said during the company’s IPO roadshow earlier this month.