Author | ZeR0 Editor | Mo Ying
Core Intelligence reported on September 11 that today, Enflame Technology, a leading AI chip company in Shanghai, rang the bell to go public on the STAR Market. Its issue price was CNY 142.18 per share, and it opened up 188.37% today at CNY 410.00 per share. As of 9:35, its stock price had surged to a high of 234.08%, reaching CNY 475.00 per share, with a total market capitalization of CNY 204.4 billion.
Founded in March 2018, Enflame Technology has independently developed and iterated five cloud AI chips across four generations of architecture, making it one of the leading cloud AI chip companies in China.
Tencent is a major shareholder and the largest end customer of Enflame Technology, holding a combined 20.26% stake with its affiliates. The National IC Fund Phase II (Big Fund Phase II), Meitu Technology, Shanghai Industrial Investment, and Zhejiang Fund are also shareholders of Enflame Technology. Tongfu Microelectronics and ZTE Corporation both participated in the strategic placement of Enflame Technology. In addition to participating in the intelligent computing center projects at the national "East Data and West Computing" hub nodes, Enflame is actively deepening cooperation with domestic telecom operators and exploring business opportunities in multiple vertical industries. According to the prospectus, unlike the GPU architecture adopted by companies such as NVIDIA, AMD, T-Head, Hygon, Moore Threads, MetaX, Biren Technology, and Iluvatar CoreX, Enflame Technology, along with Huawei HiSilicon and Cambricon, belongs to the DSA (Domain-Specific Architecture) technical faction. The mass-produced self-developed cloud AI chip products from major internet companies such as Google, Amazon Web Services, Meta, and Microsoft also adopt the DSA architecture. Based on model predictions from the Global Investment Research Division of Goldman Sachs, the shipment proportion of non-GPGPU architecture (i.e., DSA architecture) chips in AI chips for AI servers will show a clear upward trend, expected to gradually increase from 36% in 2024 to 45% in 2027.
According to IDC data statistics and Enflame's sales volume, China's AI accelerator shipments reached approximately 4 million units in 2025, with NVIDIA accounting for about 2.2 million units, or 55%; Enflame shipped approximately 66,000 units, accounting for 1.7%.
In the first half of 2026, Enflame Technology's revenue was CNY 1.12 billion, a year-on-year increase of 279.08%, exceeding the full-year revenue of CNY 990 million in 2025. The company expects to achieve profitability on a consolidated basis in 2026 or 2027.
As of yesterday's close, the total market capitalizations of Cambricon, MetaX, Moore Threads, Biren Technology, and Iluvatar CoreX were CNY 656.4 billion, CNY 197.6 billion, CNY 171.1 billion, HKD 97.1 billion, and HKD 86.4 billion, respectively, which are far behind NVIDIA's market capitalization of USD 5.27 trillion.
In this IPO, Enflame Technology planned to raise CNY 6 billion and actually raised CNY 6.119 billion, with the funds primarily allocated to the fifth- and sixth-generation AI chip products, as well as advanced AI software and hardware collaborative innovation projects.
Enflame Technology plans to leverage the funds raised from this listing to implement advanced AI software and hardware collaborative innovation projects. Through joint research and development with domestic manufacturers, it aims to build cloud AI chips based on domestic advanced processes and commercially viable super 10,000-card training/inference clusters, while further improving the software ecosystem based on mainstream AI large models.
01.AMD Veterans Start Business, Big Fund Phase II Invests, 10,000-Card Intelligent Computing Projects Generate Revenue
In March 2018, two AMD veterans, Zhao Lidong and Zhang Yalin, founded Enflame Technology in a temporary office in Zhangjiang, Shanghai. Zhao Lidong is an alumnus of the Department of Electronic Engineering at Tsinghua University. He previously served as Senior Director of the Computing Business Unit and Senior Director of the Product Engineering Department at AMD, where he was responsible for CPU/APU product planning and the R&D of multiple related core IPs, and participated in the establishment of the AMD China R&D Center. Zhang Yalin is an alumnus of the Department of Electronics and Information Systems at Fudan University. He previously served as Senior Chip Manager and Technical Director of the China R&D Center at AMD. As one of the key leaders of AMD's global chip R&D, he successfully led the development and mass production of multiple important products. Since the establishment of Enflame Technology, Zhao Lidong has served as Chairman and CEO, and Zhang Yalin has served as General Manager and COO, consistently leading the company's strategic direction and decision-making on major issues. They chose to focus on cloud AI chips. In 2019, Enflame Technology released its first-generation SuiSi chip. Over the past eight years, the company has completed the iteration of five cloud AI chips across four generations of architecture, expanding its products from chips to accelerator cards and modules, intelligent computing systems and clusters, as well as its self-developed TopsRider software platform.
The prospectus shows that its 1,000-card and 10,000-card intelligent computing center projects have generated revenue. It has jointly developed super node solutions with customers and jointly built commercially viable 10,000-card high-speed interconnect clusters. Several deputy general managers of Enflame Technology previously worked at AMD: Zhang Min (Chief Human Resources Officer), Chai Jing (Head of the Hardware Chip Department), and Gao Xiaotian (Head of the Customer Success and Solutions Engineering Department), all of whom formerly worked at AMD's Chinese subsidiary, Advanced Micro Devices (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. As of the date of the prospectus signing, Zhao Lidong and Zhang Yalin directly hold a combined 17.93% stake and indirectly control 10.21% through two employee stock ownership platforms, Enflame Huizhi and Enflame Chongying, holding a combined 28.14% control.
Among other major shareholders, Tencent Technology and its affiliates hold a 20.26% stake, Wuyuefeng Phase II and its affiliates hold a 5.71% stake, and the National IC Fund Phase II holds a 4.32% stake.
02.H1 Revenue Surges 279%, Exceeding Full-Year Revenue of Last Year
In 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, Enflame Technology's revenues were CNY 90 million, CNY 301 million, CNY 722 million, and CNY 990 million, respectively; net losses were CNY 1.116 billion, CNY 1.665 billion, CNY 1.51 billion, and CNY 1.164 billion, respectively; and CNY 988 million, CNY 1.229 billion, CNY 1.312 billion, and CNY 1.135 billion, respectively.
Overall, the company's key financial indicators are steadily improving, with H1 2026 revenue exceeding the full year of last year, but it has not yet achieved profitability. In the first half of 2026, Enflame achieved a revenue of CNY 1.12 billion, a year-on-year increase of 279.08%, with half-year revenue already surpassing the full year of 2025; the net loss was CNY 632 million, an increase of 3.57% from CNY 611 million in the same period last year; R&D expenses for the same period were not disclosed in the prospectus.
The company expects its revenue for the first three quarters of 2026 to be CNY 2.3 billion to CNY 3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 325.78% to 455.36%; the net loss attributable to the parent company is expected to be CNY 700 million to CNY 860 million.
03.Last Year's AI Accelerator Card and Module Sales Exceeded 60,000 Units, with Over 80% of Revenue from Inference Products
During the reporting period, the production and sales volumes of Enflame Technology's AI accelerator cards and modules grew rapidly, maintaining a high production-to-sales ratio.
From the perspective of revenue structure, in 2023, the main business revenue from Enflame's AI accelerator cards and modules was CNY 186 million, accounting for 63.62% of total main business revenue. By 2025, this revenue had risen to CNY 856 million, accounting for 86.83%.
During the same period, over 80% of its revenue from AI accelerator cards and modules came from inference products, whereas for comparable domestic companies, over 50% of revenue from AI accelerator cards and modules came from training/training-inference integrated products (mainly used in customer inference scenarios). From 2023 to 2025, the gross profit margin of Enflame Technology's main business improved year by year, rising from 22.60% to 30.59% and 31.78%.
However, the average values for comparable companies during the same period listed in the prospectus were 57.47%, 56.97%, and 57.87%, respectively, indicating a still significant gap.
Based on customers' extreme requirements for deployment costs in inference scenarios, the hardware configuration and performance of Enflame Technology's AI inference products are moderately trimmed compared to training/training-inference integrated products. The differences in product structure result in lower unit prices and gross profit margins for its AI accelerator cards and modules compared to the AI accelerator card products of comparable domestic companies. In terms of core technology, after years of accumulation, Enflame Technology has formed a core technology system in three major categories: chips and hardware, software and programming platforms, and computing power cluster solutions.
As of the end of 2025, Enflame Technology had a total of 838 employees, including 643 R&D personnel, accounting for 76.73%; the company and its subsidiaries have obtained 339 domestic patents, including 313 invention patents, 22 utility model patents, and 4 design patents.
Enflame's fourth-generation product L600 is a training-inference integrated acceleration module. As of the date of the prospectus signing, this product has completed tape-out but has not yet been delivered in large-scale mass production. Enflame has collaborated with customers to actively promote R&D in the application of AI large models in the training field based on the fourth-generation product, but it has not yet been widely deployed.
04.Tencent is the Largest End Customer, with Continuously Growing Related Sales Amount
The development history of Enflame Technology cannot be separated from a key large company: Tencent. Enflame and Tencent began their business cooperation in 2019. Over the past seven years, the two parties have progressed from small-scale verification in a single scenario to large-scale verification in multiple scenarios, and then to normalized batch cooperation. Today, benefiting from years of deep cooperation with Tencent in software and hardware customization, multiple generations of Enflame Technology's products have been deployed at a large scale in a wide range of internet AI scenarios. Tencent is not only a customer of Enflame but also a shareholder. Prior to the issuance, Tencent Technology directly held 19.9493% of Enflame's shares, and together with its concert party Suzhou Paiyi, held a combined stake of 20.2580%.
This relationship is hard to simply summarize as "relying on a big backer." For a chip startup, it is extremely difficult to find a top-tier customer willing to provide real business scenarios, continuously adapt software, and have sufficient procurement scale. Tencent has verified Enflame's products with real money. During the reporting period, Tencent was consistently the largest end customer of Enflame Technology, with continuously growing related sales amounts and a high proportion of revenue. In 2023, 2024, and 2025, the combined revenue from Enflame's direct sales and AVAP model sales to Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) was CNY 100 million, CNY 273 million, and CNY 830 million, respectively, accounting for 33.34%, 37.77%, and 83.79% of the revenue for the respective periods. Among these, direct sales to Tencent in 2025 were CNY 768 million, with an additional approximately CNY 61.53 million completed through the AVAP model. The so-called AVAP model refers to selling AI accelerator cards or module products to designated server manufacturers at prices agreed upon with internet customers. In other words, in 2025, for every CNY 10 of revenue Enflame generated, over CNY 8 ultimately came from Tencent-related procurement. During the same period, the revenue proportion of Enflame Technology's top five customers reached 96.50%, 92.60%, and 96.89%, respectively.
The prospectus shows that during the reporting period, Tencent's demand scale for AI accelerator cards far exceeded Enflame's current supply capacity; at the same time, adhering to the customer strategy of "prioritizing single-point breakthroughs, subsequently expanding from points to lines, and gradually from lines to surfaces," Enflame focused its limited resources on Tencent, prioritizing the rapid improvement of product and technical capabilities in the massive, high-concurrency, and high-requirement real business scenarios of top internet customers. Given that Tencent is a major demand side for domestic AI computing power, Enflame expects that the situation of a high proportion of sales to Tencent will continue for a period in the future. At the end of 2025, Enflame's accounts receivable balance decreased from CNY 518 million at the end of the previous year to CNY 290 million, but the provision ratio for bad debts increased from 8.73% to 24.76%.
The prospectus shows that the increase in the proportion of revenue from internet customers led to a decrease in the total amount of accounts receivable. To prioritize meeting the needs of top internet customers, the company adopted a more prudent business strategy for newly undertaken intelligent computing center projects; during the reporting period, the collection cycle for some intelligent computing systems and cluster projects was extended, causing related accounts receivable to shift from within one year to one to two years. According to BERNSTEIN's forecast, by 2028, the AI capital expenditures of ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent will account for nearly 50% of China's AI capital expenditures, highlighting the importance of entering the supply chain of top internet manufacturers for AI accelerator card suppliers.
05.Conclusion: Fierce Competition in Cloud AI Chips at Home and Abroad, Need to Expand More Performance Growth Engines
According to the prospectus, the commercial application of AI has driven the increase in token calls, boosting the demand for computing power. Under optimistic projections, the global AI accelerator card market space is expected to reach USD 1 trillion by 2030. International manufacturers represented by NVIDIA are the global standard setters, technology leaders, and industry dominators in AI computing power, with hardware performance, software ecosystems, system definition, and integration capabilities all leading domestic manufacturers.
Domestically, domestic manufacturers represented by Huawei HiSilicon and Cambricon started earlier than Enflame Technology, and their respective AI computing power products have already achieved considerable scale in the domestic market. Top internet manufacturers such as ByteDance, Alibaba, and Baidu have also laid out self-developed AI chips to ensure computing power supply. After a successful listing, Enflame Technology, along with other domestic listed AI chip companies, will enter a more open and brutal commercial examination.
Facing the fiercely competitive landscape of cloud AI chips at home and abroad, Enflame Technology must not only continuously iterate and launch competitive products through efficient R&D to prove its stable delivery and continuous cash-generating capabilities, but also reach out to more customers and expand growth engines beyond its business cooperation with Tencent.