Moore Threads, a Beijing-based GPU designer, saw its shares skyrocket over 400% on its first day of trading on Shanghai's STAR Market. The stock surged from an initial public offering (IPO) price of 114.28 yuan to close at 584.98 yuan, marking one of the most dramatic mainland debuts in recent years. The company raised approximately 8 billion yuan ($1.13 billion), valuing the business at around $7.6 billion and making it China's second-largest onshore IPO this year after Huadian New Energy Group.
The listing was met with overwhelming demand, with the retail portion of the offering oversubscribed 2,750 times. According to Bloomberg data, it is the second most sought-after mainland IPO above $1 billion since 2022. The company stated that the raised capital will be primarily directed toward the research and development of next-generation AI training and inference GPU chips, with some funds allocated for working capital.
The explosive debut is widely seen as a direct result of China's strategic push to build a self-reliant semiconductor ecosystem. Analyst Fan Zhiyuan of Sinolink Securities Co. noted that Moore Threads benefits from the "local replacement of foreign chips" trend, driven by ongoing trade frictions and state support for national champions. He highlighted that the company is currently the only Chinese firm capable of producing general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs).
This momentum exists despite significant headwinds. Moore Threads was placed on the U.S. Entity List in October 2023, restricting its access to advanced manufacturing technologies and forcing internal restructuring and job cuts. Furthermore, the company is not yet profitable, reporting a net loss of 724 million yuan for the first three quarters of 2025, though this represented a 19% narrowing from the prior year. Revenue, however, jumped 182% to 780 million yuan in the same period.
The IPO's success is part of a broader wave in China's semiconductor sector, fueled by relaxed STAR Market listing rules for unprofitable tech firms and Beijing's policy of blocking imports of advanced Nvidia hardware. This has created a significant market opening for domestic alternatives. The surge has buoyed related stocks, with the Star 50 Index up 34% this year and shares of competitor Cambricon Technologies Corp. doubling. The listing is also influencing the IPO pipeline, with peers like MetaX Integrated Circuits and memory chip makers Yangtze Memory and ChangXin Memory considering their own onshore listings.
