Chinese AI chipmaker Cambricon aims for US$14b revenue over 3 years

Chinese artificial intelligence chip champion Cambricon Technologies has set a target of more than 100 billion yuan (US$14.8 billion) in revenue over the next three years as the prerequisite for a newly proposed employee stock incentive plan. The goal marked a nearly 20-fold increase from its previous plan set three years ago, which aimed for 4.6 billion yuan in cumulative revenue from 2024 to 2026. It is the latest sign that domestic AI chipmakers are riding a historic market rally, driven by surging demand for computing power and a pivot towards a localised semiconductor supply chain. The Shanghai-listed company said on Tuesday that it planned to grant 5 million restricted shares – equal to 0.8 per cent of the company’s total share capital – at a grant price of 750 yuan per share, according to stock exchange filings. Cambricon shares traded at 1,100 yuan as of noon on Wednesday. The initiative covers more than 85 per cent of its 1,107-person workforce as of the end of 2025. Eligible staff included board directors, senior executives and core technical personnel, alongside mid-level managers, Cambricon said. It set a target of more than 13.5 billion yuan in revenue for 2026 alone, and 40.5 billion yuan for 2026 and 2027 combined. Shares would be granted to employees upon meeting these milestones, alongside the broader three‑year goal. The plan also reflects the company’s efforts to retain core talent amid an intensifying competition to develop and commercialise domestic AI chips that can replace those designed by US giant Nvidia. “As competition in the semiconductor field intensifies, talent costs rise,” Cambricon said in its filing. “And because performance of tech talent is long-term, it requires matching long-term incentive policies.” The ambitious three-year revenue target follows a landmark financial performance in 2025 amid the global AI frenzy. During the year, Cambricon recorded its first profit of 2.1 billion yuan, as revenue surged 453 per cent year on year to 6.5 billion yuan. The company’s market capitalisation crossed 1 trillion yuan in late June, the first firm on the technology-focused Star Market to hit the milestone, before sliding to around 700 billion recently amid a broader chip stock sell-off. It remained the most valuable company on the board before being overtaken by newly listed memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies on Monday. Cambricon’s peers are also expecting steep growth amid the massive AI infrastructure demand. Moore Threads, another Shanghai-listed AI chipmaker, said it expected its first-half revenue to rise 135 to 149 per cent year on year to between 1.65 billion yuan and 1.75 billion yuan, driven by the mass production of its graphics processing units and intelligent computing clusters. Hygon Information Technology, another leader in the domestic AI processor sector, forecast revenue growth of 55 to 70 per cent during the first six months.