Hong Kong’s capital markets pulsed with algorithmic enthusiasm on Friday as China’s artificial intelligence startups made a thunderous entrance into public trading, underscoring the sector’s accelerating convergence of data, compute power, and investor confidence.
At the center of the surge was MiniMax, whose stock vaulted 109 percent on its first day of trading, enabling the company to secure US$619 million in fresh capital and reinforcing its emergence as a key architect of China’s AI innovation stack.
Momentum extended to peer Zhipu AI, which registered a further 20.6 percent gain on its second trading session following a US$558 million IPO highlighting sustained appetite for high-growth, compute-intensive ventures.
These landmark listings arrive ahead of any public-market moves from US-based AI leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic, positioning Chinese firms at the forefront of the global IPO pipeline for generative intelligence.
Founded in 2022, MiniMax has rapidly scaled its digital infrastructure, onboarding 200 million users across a portfolio of AI-driven platforms. Its flagship product, Hailuo AI, leverages advanced video synthesis, multimodal learning, and generative diffusion models to automate content creation at scale.
The company is led by Yan Junjie, a former executive at SenseTime, whose background in enterprise-grade computer vision and algorithm deployment has shaped MiniMax’s aggressive R&D trajectory.
Addressing investors, Yan emphasized that AI progress hinges not only on breakthroughs in model architecture and training efficiency, but also on open ecosystems that enable cross-platform innovation. He projected that the industry’s next four-year cycle would mirror the exponential gains of its previous growth phase.
According to co-founder and COO Yun Yeyi, MiniMax has invested approximately US$500 million into model optimization, inference efficiency, and creative AI workflows, a cost profile he described as disciplined given the company’s expansive product roadmap.
Proceeds from the listing will be allocated toward long-term research, including the development of foundation models, AI-native operating systems, and next-generation generative tools.
The firm’s engineering ranks include veterans from Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, and DeepSeek, strengthening its deep-tech credentials.
Despite surging market enthusiasm, MiniMax remains in a capital-intensive growth phase. Overseas revenue climbed from US$100,000 in late 2024 to US$7.8 million a year later, while net losses expanded to US$512 million, reflecting heavy investment in compute infrastructure and talent acquisition.
The company has acknowledged that losses may persist as it prioritizes scalability and technological leadership.
It is also contesting a US$75 million copyright lawsuit filed by major Hollywood studios over its AI-generated video outputs, maintaining that current evidence does not substantiate the claims.
Analysts argue that profitability is a secondary metric at this stage. Gary Ng, senior economist at Natixis Corporate and Investment Banking, said investor behavior indicates a strategic bet on AI supremacy rather than near-term earnings.
“The sector is still in its early deployment cycle,” Ng noted, adding that valuation hinges on which players can dominate model performance, platform adoption, and data moats.
Industry projections suggest China’s large-language-model market could reach 101.1 billion yuan (US$14.5 billion) by 2030, while artificial intelligence is expected to inject nearly US$19.9 trillion into the global economy, reshaping productivity and digital infrastructure worldwide.
