CXMT Corp. stormed onto Shanghai's STAR Market on Monday, closing its first session up 466% and becoming China's most valuable listed company, ahead of banking giant ICBC. The memory chipmaker raised $9.8 billion in one of the country's biggest IPOs in years.
A Debut That Shook the Market
The surge pushed CXMT's market value past ICBC, which had long held the top spot. The listing came after regulators and state funds stepped in to stabilize sentiment when tech stocks slid in July, just before the debut. CXMT moved from filing to trading in under eight months, using a preliminary review process reserved for strategically vital companies.
Export Controls That Backfired
US export controls on AI chips were meant to cripple China's AI ambitions. Instead, they may have accelerated them. UBS estimates China's leading AI models cost less than 10% of what OpenAI and Anthropic spend to train. API prices for major Chinese models run below 20% of comparable global offerings.
The Capital Advantage
Chinese tech firms are borrowing at an average coupon of 1.9% this year, more than 300 basis points below US peers paying 5.25%. That's the widest gap since at least 2015. Chris Miller, author of Chip War, says US firms still have greater access to capital, but their financing costs are rising. Meanwhile, Chinese domestic compute remains pricier because domestic chips lag on quality — though that gap is closing.
A Pipeline of Big Names
The IPO pipeline is filling up. DeepSeek is weighing a listing at a $71 billion valuation. Moonshot AI is filing in Hong Kong. Z.AI and MiniMax are next in line. Beijing is tapping the $26 trillion sitting in household savings accounts, the largest pool of private capital in the world, to fund strategic industries.
The question now is whether the next crop of listings can match CXMT's reception — and whether the export-control strategy will keep failing to slow China's AI push. DeepSeek's valuation decision will be a telling marker.
