By Yantoultra Ngui and Samuel Shen
HONG KONG/SHANGHAI, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Chinese artificial intelligence chipmaker Shanghai Enflame Technology surged about 200% in its Shanghai debut on Friday, after the Tencent-backed company raised 6.12 billion yuan ($912 million) in its initial public offering.
The stock opened at 410 yuan versus its offer price of 142.18 yuan, and rose to as much as 475 yuan before trading at around 430 yuan. China’s STAR Market dropped more than 2%, while the CSI 300 Index was down 1.43%.
Enflame’s debut adds to a rush of listings by Chinese companies seeking to supply computing chips for artificial intelligence, as Beijing pushes for home-grown alternatives to U.S. suppliers such as Nvidia.
The company is one of a group of Chinese AI chip startups sometimes called the “four little GPU dragons”, alongside Moore Threads, MetaX and Biren Technology.
Enflame sold 43.04 million new shares, equal to 10% of its enlarged share capital, on Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR Market.
It priced the shares at 142.18 yuan each, giving it a market value of about 61.2 billion yuan at the offer price, according to its filing on Wednesday.
At around 430 yuan, Enflame’s market value stood at roughly 185 billion yuan, more than triple the valuation at the IPO price.
Tencent is Enflame’s largest shareholder, with a 17.95% stake after the offering, and was also the company’s largest customer before the listing.
Sales linked to Tencent accounted for 83.79% of Enflame’s 2025 revenue, its prospectus showed.
Founded in 2018, Enflame makes chips and add-on cards used to run AI services in data centres. It also sells larger computing systems and software that helps customers use its chips.
The company plans to use most of the proceeds to develop its fifth- and sixth-generation AI chips, related software and large scale computing systems, according to its prospectus.
Only 17.9 million shares, or 4.16% of Enflame’s enlarged share capital, will be freely tradable at the start of trading, according to its filing.
($1 = 6.7061 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui in Hong Kong and Samuel Shen in Shanghai; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Kim Coghill)
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